The expert in mining and mineral exploration American Lithium Minerals, provides the most recent project updates from its rare earth properties in Kingman and Hicks Dome, according to Innovation News Network.
The periodic table’s 15 lanthanides, together with scandium and yttrium, make up the group of 17 metallic elements known as rare earth elements (REEs). For high-tech applications like mobile phones, electric vehicles, and green technology, REEs are known to be essential.
A Nevada-based corporation, American Lithium Minerals, Inc., specializes in mineral exploration. On more than 6,000 acres (2,450 hectares) of mining claims and more than 800 acres of private mineral rights, they are developing two rare earth element (REE) projects, one graphite project, five lithium exploration prospects, and one lithium property.
Increasing rare earth element production in the US[ML1] is critical in light of recent, widely reported supply chain problems. Near Kingman, Arizona, approximately 100 miles (160 km) from the Las Vegas headquarters, the Kingman Rare Earth project is located. The Midwest operations center in Cairo, Illinois, is about a 90-minute drive from the second REE location, Hicks Dome, in southeast Illinois.
The high-tech industry’s “vitamins,” rare earth, are used in the following cutting-edge applications, as listed by Green Car Reports.
- Cerium: Catalytic converters, phosphors for colour cathode ray tubes, and x-ray intensifying screens;
- Gadolinium: Magnets for computer equipment, colour phosphors;
- Lanthanum: Catalytic converters;
- Neodymium: Permanent magnets for automotive engines;
- Praseodymium: Magnets for telecommunications equipment; and
- Yttrium: Catalytic converters, tri-phosphor fluorescent lamps.
In addition, lasers, superconductors, magnetostrictive alloys, and magnetic refrigeration are other purposes for rare earth elements.
The People’s Republic of China now generates or refines the majority of rare earths. In the US, concern over the reliance on this source for vital high-tech minerals has intensified.
Kingman Rare Earth Property
The “Kingman Feldspar Mine” and the “Mineral X” property” are the two separate properties that make up the Kingman Rare Earth Project.
Kingman Feldspar Mine
The eastern flank of Bull Mountain is where the Kingman Feldspar Mine is situated, five miles (8 km) north of Kingman, Arizona. The 35-acre site’s historical mining operations produced feldspar and quartz from two distinct quarries within a sizable 1.7-billion-year-old pegmatite during the 1920s and 1980s. Two lode mining rights on US Bureau of Land Management-managed property make up American Lithium Minerals’ land position.
It has been discovered that allanite comprises both allanite-(Ce) and allanite- (Nd). In 1955, X-ray fluorescence was used to perform a partial analysis of the allanite, which revealed that it contained the following amounts of rare earth elements: 1.3% yttrium (Y), 4.4% lanthanum (La), 8.1% cerium (Ce), 1.0% promethium (Pr), 4.2% neodymium (Nd), 0.95% samarium (Sm), 0.7% gadolinium (Gd), and 0.13% dys (Dy). Five samples were assayed in 2010, and the results supported the presence of rare earths.
Mineral ‘X’ Pegmatite
Since the rare earth mineral found there was initially unidentified, this property was given the moniker Mineral ‘X.’ In 1965, it was determined to be thalenite, a mineral containing the REE elements dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), and ytterbium (Yb). A pegmatite two miles east of Interstate Highway I-40, about five miles south of Kingman, close to the Western Wind power facility, is where the rare earths are discovered. Prospecting for comparable pegmatites on the neighboring mining claim and a thorough analysis of the exposed pegmatite are also planned.
Notably, the joint venture between AMLM and Altair International includes the Kingman Rare Earth Project.
Hicks Dome Rare Earth
Fluorspar is an industrial mineral containing the element fluorine and is occasionally linked to rare earth deposits. The Illinois Kentucky Fluorspar District (IKFD), which is situated on both banks of the Ohio River in Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky, has historically been the main source of US fluorspar production.
Meanwhile, at the Hicks Dome’s apex, rocks from the middle Devonian period, which date to 380 to 400 million years ago, are exposed. Younger rocks of the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian periods surround these rocks in a bullseye pattern.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) discovered a prospective resource at Hicks Dome in 1978 that included 14,700,000 tons of rare earth oxides at a concentration of 0.42%.
AMLM Hicks Dome REE Project
A property position totaling 1358 gross acres (816 net acres – 330 hectares) has been acquired by AMLM as of October 2022. In Southeast Illinois, AMLM intends to keep assembling properties until the end of 2022. Meanwhile, spring 2023 will mark the start of the first sampling.
The distribution of AMLM’s current private mineral rights is as follows:
- Hicks Dome
- Hamp Mine
- Gintert Mine
- Rosiclare
- Elizabethtown
- Cave-in-Rock
- Hill Mine
For the management, Barbara McIntyre Bauman serves as the president and CEO of AMLM.
McIntyre Bauman is an accomplished mining executive with more than 20 years of experience in the mining and mineral exploration industries and over ten years in telecommunications and data processing. Since 1998, she has served as Manager of Searchlight Exploration and Manager of the McIntyre Bauman Group. Furthermore, from 2017 to 2021, McIntyre Bauman presided over Bonanza Goldfields Corp.
For the capital structure, 68,717,592 of the 75 million allotted shares of common stock of AMLM were issued and active as of October 2022. Notably, the current management entered the business in 2019. In order to finance expansion or acquisitions, it has avoided issuing more common shares.
Additionally, management has avoided hazardous convertible debt and has advanced money for buying real estate.
Nonetheless, the joint venture partners have contributed a significant portion of the exploration costs. As a result, a conservative financial structure was created to survive in the cyclical mining exploration sector.
