Aggregate resource availability in the conterminous United States, including suggestions for addressing shortages, quality, and environmental concerns
Presentation materials discussing types of aggregate, the occurrence of good-quality aggregate, and pointing out where good-quality aggregate is limited. Societal and environmental issues that limit aggregate development are also discussed. Data are provided in PDF and Microsoft PowerPoint. |
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Critical Mineral Resources of the United States—An Introduction
An overview of the mineral resource classifications, terms, and definitions used in PP 1802. Includes a review of the history of the use and meaning of the term “critical” applied to minerals or materials. |
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Antimony
Antimony’s leading use is as a fire retardant in safety equipment and in household goods such as mattresses. The U.S. Government has considered antimony to be a critical mineral mainly because of its use in military applications. |
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Background information to accompany the atlas of some metal and nonmetal mineral provinces in the conterminous United States
Explains how a set of mineral resource province maps were compiled, what sort of information went into them, how they should be interpreted, and why they are important. |
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Barite (Barium)
Barite (barium sulfate, BaSO4) is vital to the oil and gas industry because it is a key constituent of the mud used to drill oil and gas wells. Elemental barium is an additive in optical glass, ceramic glazes, and other products. |
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Barite: a case study of import reliance on an essential material for oil and gas exploration and development drilling
Reliance on imported barite to supply the United States results from numerous factors, but is primarily influenced by economic conditions, which have increasingly favored imports over domestic production in recent decades. |
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Beryllium
Beryllium is a mineral commodity that is used in a variety of industries to make products that are essential for the smooth functioning of a modern society. |
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Cobalt
Cobalt is a silvery gray metal that has diverse uses due to its ferromagnetism, hardness and wear-resistance when alloyed with other metals, low thermal and electrical conductivity, high melting point, multiple valences, and color effects with silica. |
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Fluorine
Fluorine compounds are essential in numerous chemical and manufacturing processes. Fluorspar is the commercial name for fluorite (isometric CaF2), which is the only fluorine mineral that is mined on a large scale. |
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Gallium
Gallium is a soft, silvery metallic element with an atomic number of 31 and the chemical symbol Ga. Gallium is used in a wide variety of products that have microelectronic components containing either gallium arsenide (GaAs) or gallium nitride (GaN). |
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Germanium and Indium
Germanium and indium are used in electronics devices, flat-panel display screens, light-emitting diodes, night vision devices, optical fiber, optical lens systems, and solar power arrays. |
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Global stocks of selected mineral-based commodities
Amounts and global distribution of major consumer, producer, and exchange stocks of selected mineral commodities. |
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Graphite
Steelmaking and refractory applications in metallurgy use the largest amount of produced graphite; however, emerging technology uses in large-scale fuel cell, battery, and lightweight high-strength composites promise more uses. |
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International geoscience collaboration to support critical mineral discovery
Explains how and why an international collaboration among geoscience agencies will help the participating nations expand and diversify critical mineral supply chains. |
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Lithium
Lithium, the lightest of all metals, is used in air treatment, batteries, ceramics, glass, metallurgy, pharmaceuticals, and polymers. |
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Manganese
Manganese is used to make steel, where it serves as a purifying agent in iron-ore refining and as an alloy. |
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Materials flow in the United States—A global context, 1900–2020
Data on materials are presented provide an overview of the annual quantities (measured in physical terms) required for the standard of living in the United States and to provide insights into the consumption trajectory that developing countries may follow. |
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Methodology and technical input for the 2021 review and revision of the U.S. Critical Minerals List
Explains how USGS evaluates disruption potential, economic vulnerability, trade exposure, and overall supply risk to develop recommendations as to which mineral commodities might be included in the official list of US critical minerals. |
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Mineral commodity summaries 2021
Detailed summaries of the production, consumption, economic valuation, and use of a wide variety of non-fuel mineral commodities in the US through 2020. Includes notes on production and resources worldwide and issues affecting the commodities both within and outside the US. |
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Niobium and Tantalum
Niobium and tantalum are found together in nature because they have similar physical and chemical properties. Niobium is used in high-strength steel alloys, while tantalum is used in electronic capacitors. |
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Platinum-Group Elements
The platinum-group elements (PGEs)—platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium—are metals that have similar physical and chemical properties and tend to occur together in nature. PGEs are indispensable to many industrial applications. |
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Rare-Earth Elements
Because of their unusual physical and chemical properties, the REEs have diverse defense, energy, industrial, and military technology applications including glass, petroleum refining, automobiles, and magnets. |
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Rhenium
Rhenium is a rare metal that has an extremely high melting point and a heat-stable crystalline structure. It is used in high-temperature superalloys, to make turbine blades for jet aircraft engines and is a catalyst for petroleum refining. |
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Selenium
Selenium is a trace element in Earth's crust. Modern uses for selenium include energy-efficient windows that limit heat transfer and thin-film photovoltaic cells that convert solar energy into electricity. |
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Tellurium
Tellurium is a rare element obtained as a byproduct of mining for other commodities whose main uses are in photovoltaic solar cells and as an additive to copper, lead, and steel alloys in various types of machinery. |
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Tin
Tin (Sn) is one of the first metals to be used by humans. Almost without exception, tin is used as an alloy. Its major uses today are for cans and containers, construction materials, transportation materials, and solder. |
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Titanium
Titanium colors paint, paper, plastic, rubber, and wallboard. Because of its strength and corrosion resistance, titanium metal and its alloys are used in the aerospace industry as well as for welding rod coatings, biological implants, and consumer goods. |
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U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Summaries 2022 Data Release
Statistics for over 88 nonfuel mineral commodities including items such as production, imports, exports, price, stocks, apparent consumption, and/or net import reliance for nonfuel mineral commodities. Data are provided in CSV format. |
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U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Summaries 2023 Data Release
U.S.salient statistics and world production statistics for over 88 nonfuel mineral commodities. Salient statistics for the United States includes items such as production, imports, exports, price, stocks, apparent consumption, and/or net import reliance for nonfuel mineral commodities. Data are provide in CSV format. |
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United States copper metal and scrap use and trade patterns, 1995‒2014
Explains supply and demand for US copper. Worldwide demand increased, much of that from China. Chinese demand for copper scrap from the US has decreased recently, which could lead to an oversupply and declining prices. |
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Vanadium
Vanadium is used primarily in the production of steel alloys; as a catalyst for the chemical industry; in the making of ceramics, glasses, and pigments; and in vanadium redox-flow batteries (VRBs) for large-scale storage of electricity. |
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Yale stocks and flows database (YSTAFDB) describing anthropogenic materials cycles, recycling, and criticality for 102 materials on spatial scales ranging from suburbs to global and timescales from the early 1800s to circa 2017
Relational database describing 102 materials from the early 1800s to circa 2017 through anthropogenic cycles, their recycling and criticality properties, and on spatial scales ranging from suburbs to global. Provided as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and CSV formats. |
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Zirconium and Hafnium
Zirconium and hafnium are corrosion-resistant metals that are widely used in the chemical and nuclear industries. Most zirconium is consumed in the form of the main ore mineral zircon or as zirconium oxide or other zirconium chemicals. |
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