CRITICAL MINERALS RESEARCH AT THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY (Invited Presentation)

Critical minerals play an essential role in our economy and national security and have supply chains vulnerable to disruption. This includes many mineral commodities required for the development of renewable energy and infrastructure as part of the energy transition. Research at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is driving the Nation’s understanding of critical mineral resources from the ground up. The USGS Mineral Resources Program (MRP) collects, analyses, interprets, preserves and disseminates global data on supply, demand, and trade of mineral commodities in support of research on supply chains and mineral criticality as well as geological, geochemical, and geophysical data in support of research to understand the genesis and distribution of mineral resources, in part by conducting qualitative and quantitative mineral resource assessments. Utilizing a mineral systems approach, MRP’s Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI), in partnership with other USGS Programs, other Federal agencies, States, Tribes, and the private sector, began an ambitious effort in 2019 to improve understanding of the Nation’s geologic framework through mapping and collection of modern data with a focus on critical mineral resources. Recent congressional mandates, including the Energy Act of 2020 and the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, have accelerated MRP’s research efforts on critical minerals, including the development of methodology that led to the 2022 list of critical minerals and the expansion of Earth MRI. The USGS is also engaging in efforts to improve the understanding of the Nation’s endowment of mineral resources contained in mine wastes and the potential environmental impacts and/or benefits of their extraction. These efforts will improve understanding of the supply of domestic and global critical mineral resources and support government policy decisions ranging across topics from tax and tariff strategies to investments in new extraction technologies to land-use planning.