@article{oai:kanazawa-u.repo.nii.ac.jp:00060772,
 author = {臼井, 洋一 and Takaya, Yutaro and Yasukawa, Kazutaka and Kawasaki, Takehiro and Fujinaga, Koichiro and Ohta, Junichiro and Usui, Yoichi and Nakamura, Kentaro and Kimura, Jun-ichi and Chang, Qing and Hamada, Morihisa and Dodbiba, Gjergj and Nozaki, Tatsuo and Iijima, Koichi and Morisawa, Tomohiro and Kuwahara, Takuma and Ishida, Yasuyuki and Ichimura, Takao and Kitazume, Masaki and Fujita, Toyohisa and Kato, Yasuhiro},
 issue = {1},
 journal = {Scientific Reports},
 month = {Apr},
 note = {Potential risks of supply shortages for critical metals including rare-earth elements and yttrium (REY) have spurred great interest in commercial mining of deep-sea mineral resources. Deep-sea mud containing over 5,000 ppm total REY content was discovered in the western North Pacific Ocean near Minamitorishima Island, Japan, in 2013. This REY-rich mud has great potential as a rare-earth metal resource because of the enormous amount available and its advantageous mineralogical features. Here, we estimated the resource amount in REY-rich mud with Geographical Information System software and established a mineral processing procedure to greatly enhance its economic value. The resource amount was estimated to be 1.2 Mt of rare-earth oxide for the most promising area (105 km2 × 0-10 mbsf), which accounts for 62, 47, 32, and 56 years of annual global demand for Y, Eu, Tb, and Dy, respectively. Moreover, using a hydrocyclone separator enabled us to recover selectively biogenic calcium phosphate grains, which have high REY content (up to 22,000 ppm) and constitute the coarser domain in the grain-size distribution. The enormous resource amount and the effectiveness of the mineral processing are strong indicators that this new REY resource could be exploited in the near future. © 2018 The Author(s)., 金沢大学理工研究域地球社会基盤学系},
 title = {The tremendous potential of deep-sea mud as a source of rare-earth elements},
 volume = {8},
 year = {2018}
}