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Tony Mariano: The Special Science of Rare Earths
Posted 8/2/2010 4:02 PM
Theability to separate the science from the promotional claims is amongthe expertise that Geological Consultant Tony Mariano, PhD, brings tothe rare earth elements ( REE) table. Tony, who for decades has combined long hours in the lab witheven longer field visits to evaluate mineralization in its naturalenvironment, is among the rare ones who can help companies evaluate adeposit for grade, tonnage and the prospects for economic recovery. Asharp technician who manages to keep his head out of the clouds and hisfeet on the ground, Tony shares some of his secrets, and some of hisopinions about the hottest prospective properties, in this exclusiveinterview with The Gold Report.
The Gold Report: Jon Hykawy, technology analyst at Byron Capital Markets,recently told us that short supplies of heavy rare earths (HREEs) willbe driving up their price and shifting the economies of mining projectsin favor of companies that can produce large quantities of heavy rareearths. To what extent do you agree with that assessment?
Tony Mariano:I believe that this may be true, however we must define our demarcationof the light rare earth elements (LREEs) and heavy rare earth elements.Individuals have their own ideas of where to start defining the heaviesas opposed to the lights.
Currentlythe lanthanides in greatest demand are neodymium, europium, gadolinium,dysprosium and terbium; however, the demand for particular REEs isdynamic and can change at any time. Praseodymium is also of valuebecause of its similar properties to neodymium.
Whencompanies promote their deposits, they tend to come up with somethingalong the lines of, "We have a certain percentage of the heavies and acertain percentage of the lights." The greater the percentage of theheavies they show, the more it is to their advantage, so they tend tostart counting in areas that I would qualify as light rare earthelements.
When REEs arebeing discussed, people should define what they mean by the light andheavy rare earths. For me, the lights go midway through gadolinium. Iwould classify the heavies as terbium through lutetium. If you attemptto synthesize each of the REEs with a certain complex, phosphoruspentoxide (P2O5), for example, lanthanum through gadolinium will assume amonoclinic structure. Terbium through lutetium will assume a tetragonalstructure similar to yttrium phosphate, and also similar to the mineralzircon. For me this demarcation is more rigorous from a scientificpoint of view. Otherwise the distinction between the LREEs and HREEs isarbitrary.
TGR: So the generally accepted notion that the HREEs are less common and therefore rarer and more valuable isn't accurate?
TM:No, that's not accurate. They're heavies or they're lights, period.Some are common. Some are not. Some of the heavies tend to be muchrarer. Lutetium is a rare element, but yttrium-which always accompaniesthe heavy lanthanides-is not a rare element. In many areas, dysprosium,erbium and terbium are not that rare.
TGR: When investorshear the terms light rare earths and heavy rare earths, how should theybe thinking as far as the economic viability of a deposit?
TM:I would imagine they have to pay attention to those that are currentlyin demand and place that into the equation. When they hear that adeposit has a certain amount of tonnage of certain elements, nowadayspeople tend to sit down and look at those elements' market prices. Thenthey decide that they've got something great. To me this approach can bevery misleading.
TGR: Why?
TM:You can find many deposits that show good grade and tonnage consistingof a large quantity of valuable elements. If one calculates theelements' value based on current prices, the deposit looks like it's ofgreat value. However, those elements must be mineable and economic toprocess so they are competitive in the marketplace. In many occurrencesthat might not be the case.
TGR:The Chinese have become very good at finding rare earth deposits andprocessing them, and are dominant in this space. Recently they announcedthey will begin restricting rare earth exports, which seems to havecreated a rush to find deposits throughout North America. In general,where do you think the prospects look good?
TM:We know of a number of deposits in North America where we can acquirethe light lanthanides. We can do well going from lanthanum into themid-atomic number lanthanides. That would include deposits such asMolycorp Mineral's ( MCP ) Mountain Pass in California, Rare Element Resources Ltd.'s (TSX.V: RES)Bear Lodge carbonatite in Wyoming, and Wicheeda Lake in BritishColumbia, which is run by a private company, Spectrum MiningCorporation. [Editor's note: Molycorp Minerals ( MCP ) went public 7/29/2010. See press release .]
TheMountain Pass deposit is rich in LREEs with ample grade and tonnage,and Molycorp has the technology to produce excellent REE concentratesfor lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium and samarium. And basedon work that I have done in Wicheeda Lake, that mineralogy is amenableto physical concentration and there should be no problems in chemicalprocessing.
Although we havesources in North America for LREEs in addition to those I justmentioned, to me they may have the best potential.
In terms of the heavies, we have several interesting HREE occurrences with some potential that are currently being investigated.
TGR: What are some of the deposits with the high ratio of heavies to lights that you're interested in?
TM: I've been working for Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (TSX.V:UCU)on Bokan Mountain in Alaska. It's on the southern tip of Prince ofWales Island. The accessibility there is the best of almost any deposit.It's principally heavy rare earth enriched with yttrium and dysprosium,gadolinium, erbium and ytterbium. The heavy lanthanides dominate themineralogy. At this time they are working to establish whether they havesufficient grade and tonnage, and whether it's amenable to economicrecovery.
They're in theexploration process right now. As a matter of fact, I'm scheduled to gothere August 8-13, with Ucore people and a number of others from theUnited States Geological Survey. The U.S. government is quite interestedin these minerals because they are of military importance.
TGR: Let's move on to some of the other deposits you'd like to talk about.
TM:I started the mineral exploration in Kipawa, Quebec, for Molycorp inthe mid-1980s. Kipawa is enriched with the mineral eudialyte, whichmeans "well decomposable" in Greek. I was able to establish thateudialyte contained yttrium and HREEs in anomalous amounts.
A number of years ago Matamec Explorations Inc. (TSX.V:MAT), a Canadian company from Québec, acquired the mineral rights onKipawa. I've been basically working with Matamec and they are beginningto get some very interesting results.
TGR: What are you finding?
TM:First of all, it's going to be very easy to make a eudialyte physicalconcentrate in Kipawa. In fact, the way I see it, it's going to beeasier to do this than in any other eudialyte deposit that I've workedon thus far. They are working on establishing that they indeed canprocess the eudialyte concentrate chemically to remove all of thelanthanides and yttrium and be able to bring them into the market. Anddo it at a cost that's competitive.
TGR: So the ease of creating that eudialyte concentrate translates into a lower cost of production?
TM:Yes. But there are a lot of other additional costs. Using common sense,if a deposit is in a certain type of geologic occurrence where therocks are very difficult to crush and separate, it's going to be muchmore costly. And if a deposit is in a remote place it's going to cost alot more to mine and you need to get power, too. You need to getreagents. You need qualified people to do the mining. Also, speaking ofother complications, the Parajito is currently owned by First Nationsgroups who have not allowed requests for access to the land and have yetto partner with a public company, so investment there is not possible at this time.
TGR: TGR: You mentioned Rare Element Resources' Bear Lodge a bit earlier. What's the story there?
TM:Bear Lodge is a light lanthanide deposit. I did the initial work onBear Lodge in the '70s-again for Molycorp. I did all of the mineralogy. Ijust came back from there in mid-July. Bear Lodge can provide lightlanthanides and some of the mid-atomic number lanthanides in greaterquantity than Mountain Pass, so that deposit has very good potential.
TGR: Now what about that deposit in South Africa? I'm not sure I can pronounce it.
TM: Steenkampskraal. That belongs to Great Western Minerals Group Ltd. (TSX.V:GWG; OTCQX:GWMGF) , out of Saskatchewan.
TGR: Have you visited that site?
TM:No, I've never been there. I've worked on some of the minerals. Manyyears ago a Brazilian colleague of mine visited the occurrence there andhe brought back minerals. I've done a lot of work on monazite from allover the world, including Steenkampskraal. So I know quite a bit aboutthe mineral.
TGR: Hasn't GWG entered into an option agreement with Search Minerals Inc.'s (TSX.V:SMY) wholly owned subsidiary, Alterra Resources, for a 50% working interest in Alterra's Red Wine property in Labrador, too?
TM: Yes. Great Western Minerals Group is there. Medallion Resources Ltd. (TSX.V:MDL)also has an option agreement going in the Red Wine, and I'll be goingto visit the Medallion area shortly and will be able to give my opinionon this deposit and rank it relative to other eudialyte deposits. As amatter of fact, I'm working on 15 polished thin sections and slabs fromthe Red Wine that I obtained. This is principally a eudialyte depositand it also contains alkali zirconosilicates-AZS-that have the heavyrare earths and may be amenable to economic recovery.
TGR: Is Medallion's Eden Lake deposit primarily light earths?
TM:Yes, but it appears to have an interesting showing of some of theheavies as well. However, these things don't come to you. It needs to beevaluated and it costs money to do that. These people are aware ofthat. They try to acquire people with the best background who areequipped to do these evaluations, such as Jim Clark, who is vicepresident of exploration for Rare Element Resources. He will join me on afield visit to collect rocks and evaluate Eden.
Plentyof academic people have worked on these things, but the academics arenot exploration geologists. Even economic geology professors don't maketheir living on exploration and true economics. They make their livingteaching, hopefully teaching students and publishing academic papers.They make great contributions, but when they look at a deposit, theydon't focus on the things we geologists have to focus on in order toevaluate a deposit from an exploration and economic point of view.
Soacademic people have looked at Eden Lake and perhaps to some extent,some exploration people as well, but not exploration people with abackground on rare earth deposits. By background I mean in thelaboratory and in the field, areas in which Jim Clark and I both haveexpertise.
One has to lookat these deposits. Once you study and understand them in the field andin the laboratory, you can make a value judgment about which have thebest possibility of being able to take over the marketplace. Theseinclude Pajarito, Kipawa, Bokan Mountain, the Red Wine complex and theNorra Kärr project in Sweden.
TGR: That's Tasman Metals Ltd.'s (TSX.V:TSM) project?
TM:Yes. I just visited there with Tasman, and I'm busy working on thatalso. Eudialyte deposits include the Ilimaussaq Intrusion in southernGreenland and eudialyte deposits in the Kola Peninsula of Russia aswell. These occurrences have a lot of potential and they are veryinteresting deposits, but they have to be looked at.
TGR: Right. Now let me ask you about one more project and that is Strange Lake. You've obviously visited Strange Lake.
TM:I did a considerable amount of work in the early 1980s on Strange Lake.It's a large A-type granite circular structure, close to 5 kilometersin diameter. I believe it was first discovered by Iron Ore Company ofCanada ( IOC ). Now Quest Rare Minerals Ltd. (TSX.V:QRM) is exploring and defining Strange Lake.
Thisdeposit is made up of a complexity of a number of different rareearth-bearing minerals that are very fine grain and are locked mostly inquartz and feldspar. So there are problems in processing, to saynothing of the remoteness of the deposit and some other issues that gobeyond what I specialize in-like cost of transportation and social andpolitical issues. However, recently they have made considerable progressin their drilling program, uncovering some areas of very attractivemineralization.
TGR:We've talked about Eden Lake, Mountain Pass, Bear Lodge, Wicheeda Lake,Bokan Mountain, Strange Lake, Pajarito, Kipawa, Red Wine,Steenkampskraal, Norra Kärr, the Ilimaussaq Intrusion and the KolaPeninsula. Have we left off any?
TM:There are so many deposits, it's hard to keep them all in mind. Thedeposits I currently think have the most potential and deserve a closerlook from the point of view of the heavy lanthanides are Pajarito andKipawa. We need to look into the Red Wine to find out what indeed isthere. And I hear there are some interesting things at the Douglas Riverdeposit. I have a pretty good idea what the geology is, but I've neverbeen to the Douglas River. I'm scheduled to go there August 23-30.
TGR: Where is Douglas River?
TM:It's in Saskatchewan. It's similar to the Maw zone in the lower part ofthe Athabasca-the uranium occurrence. It's supposedly mineralized withxenotime. The mineral xenotime has about 29% to 31% yttrium oxide. Aboutanother 30% includes the other heavy lanthanides. So it's a veryattractive mineral. But again, it needs to be found in grade and tonnageto make it a bona fide deposit.
TGR:If Pajarito and the Kipawa are developed and begin to produce, willthey deliver enough supply to satisfy the demand or will we needadditional mines?
TM:I think they'd be able to satisfy the conditions for a number of years.Meanwhile, we're very busy looking all over the world for more ofthese. Particularly since the lanthanides, the heavies and including thelights, as far as I'm concerned, have unique properties. This isparticularly true of the lanthanides, where the valence electrons aresuborbital, which imparts very special properties. And they're beingused extensively in many ways.
TGR:Early on in the conversation we touched on China beginning to restrictexports of the various rare earths. With some of these depositspotentially coming into production, are the fears that are beinggenerated unfounded?
TM:Well. . .Bear in mind, once you find the deposit it's very costly toget it going, to reproduce a Mountain Pass. So suppose people do findthese different deposits and finally establish that they have the gradeand tonnage and that the deposit is amenable to economic recovery. Atthat time a large capital is required to start a mine.
TGR: Tony, this has been a great education in the world of rare earths. We appreciate your time.
AnthonyN. (Tony) Mariano, PhD, is a geological consultant on rare earths andother rare metals. For decades, he has been the "go-to" expert on thegeology and mineralogy of rare earths, niobium-tantalum and other raremetals. A seasoned mineralogist and petrographer, Tony integrates hisstrong knowledge of geology and extractive metallurgy ("geometallurgy")to predict success or failure of proposed rare earth ventures. Companiesaround the world depend on his professional opinions on the potentialeconomic viability of deposits based on mineralogical examination, labwork and field visits. After earning his PhD in geology from BostonUniversity, Tony worked a number of years at Kennecott Research's lab inMassachusetts, after which he began his career as a consultinggeologist, specializing in carbonatite-hosted rare earth and niobiumdeposits.
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