US find £1,100,715,000,000 worth of mineral under ancient super volcano
Some people might argue that the US is basically playing the game of life on easy mode, what with their country being the size of a continent, having the world's two largest oceans to guard their coasts and nations with less population and power to their north and south.
Also, they've got a f**kload of natural resources as a consequence of being the size of a continent, and they recently found some more.
According to Earth, geologists have found what could be one of the world's largest deposits of lithium beneath the crater left behind by an ancient super volcano with there being an estimated 20 to 40 million tons of the metal which has all sorts of uses including your phone battery.
On the border between the US states of Oregon and Nevada is a place called the McDermitt Caldera which has already been mined for mercury and uranium and could also have the world's largest discovered lithium deposit.
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Since lithium is worth around $37,000 a ton that'd potentially mean the US is sitting on lithium worth $1.5 trillion (£1.1 trillion), though obviously if they mined it the value would drop.
If they can even get it out of the ground the significant boost to the world's lithium supply would likely drop the price, so the riches of the alkali metal sitting in a large volcanic crater won't be quite as valuable if they start digging.
A study into the potential supply of lithium determined how much is likely in the crater, which could be a useful supply if global demands for lithium keep rising.
Researchers have warned that by 2040 the global demand for the metal could be eight times what it was in 2022, with a million tons a year needed to satisfy the wants of humanity.
As such the lithium deposits would be a veritable goldmine.
It all depends on what the US does with this possible wealth and how much of it they're willing to dig up, as well as what rate they'd want to extract it from the ground.
With such an operation there'd be plenty of environmental concerns to consider and that's before a mining operation could even be set up.
As with pretty much every case of finding a huge deposit of potential mineral wealth, the initial estimated value is far higher than the money people would be able to get for it.
Think of those asteroids in space which are theoretically worth untold riches, if one could be tapped into then the riches would quickly become tolled and the massive influx of supply would make it cheaper.
Topics: Technology, US News, Money
Joe Harker