Japan's huge Rare Earth deposits

[davidbfpo]

This is curious, it was previously reported as a discovery in 2013.
See:https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8...gadget-economy

Quite an engineering feat required to access the raw material:

Exploration around the island of Minami-Torishima will continue for another two years before scaling up towards production. If Japan can find a cost-effective way of extracting the vast amount of minerals buried about 20,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, experts estimate the Asian country will have access to about 6.8 million tonnes of rare earths, equivalent to 230 years of local demand for the materials.

See:http://www.mining.com/japans-massive...premacy-89013/

The publication in 'Nature' on April 10th might explain why the new media coverage happened, even if very technical to the layman.
Link:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23948-5.pdf