2025 Irish Geological Research Meeting – IGA Lecture

This year, the 68th Irish Geological Research Meeting is taking place this weekend at the Edmund Burke Theatre, Arts Block, Trinity College Dublin.
While registration for this meeting is now closed, there will be a keynote lecture that IGA members are specially welcome to attend on Saturday evening. This lecture is being presented by Prof. Frances Wall who is based at the University of Exeter in England. The topic is critical rare earth minerals, now very sought after, causing significant socio-economic and environmental challenges.
Please join us if you can, in person, for this lecture, as IGA is a sponsor of this IGRM. We are extremely proud to be awarding the annual outstanding Student Talks, in memory of the late Barry Long of GSI, and outstanding Student Poster awards too, at the conclusion of the Research Meeting.

Abstract: Critical minerals are back at the top of the agenda, with talk of tariffs and trade wars and proposals to buy Greenland, as well as the concern about changes in the global dynamic, as the power of access to deposits of the minerals needed for all our green and digital technologies takes over from the geopolitical power that currently comes from fossil fuel resources.

Rare earths are always near the top of critical minerals lists. Their magnetic and luminescent properties make them essential components of digital and low carbon technologies but their supply is vulnerable to disruption because the whole value chain of mining, processing and manufacturing is dominated by China.

The rare earth elements (REE) comprise 17 elements that include scandium, yttrium and the 15 elements lanthanum through to lutetium. The name ‘rare earth’ was given by early chemists in reference to the difficulty in separation of the elements from each other – nothing to do with rare earths being scarce. The crustal abundance of light REE is about the same as copper and even the less abundant heavy REE are much more abundant than precious metals such as gold.

So, it should be easy to open up a few more mines and diversify supply outside of China, right? Well, history has proved this wrong. Since REE first hit the headlines in 2010, there is still only one new major REE miner outside of China. The geology, mineralogy and geochemistry of REE, combined with finance and geopolitical constraints have all conspired to slow down new REE production.

This talk considers the vital role that geologists, working with colleagues in minerals processing, responsible sourcing and finance, play in the REE story.

We will consider carbonatite-related deposits, that host most REE mines; alkaline rocks, like those that occur in large deposits in Greenland but have mineralogical challenges; ion adsorption clays that are a responsible sourcing disaster story in China and Myanmar but might prove a viable source of REE elsewhere; and mineral sands that can produce monazite as a by-product. The talk will review the many studies that have sought to produce REE as by-products of other mines, ranging from coal, to bauxite and phosphate but none have yet come to fruition. The last deposit type for geologists to consider is the urban mine, our anthropogenic REE deposits that are in products all around us.