18 Million tons of lithium worth $540 billion discovered below California lake bed.

Star Fleet Approves

 

I thought we already replaced lithium with salt

 

Well this is awesome

 

My instinct is, best wishes getting Newsome et al to agree to mineral rights near the Salton Sea, even though it’s an accidentally man-made lake and progressively dying due to the salt content.

 

Yes but the odds that someone posted about discovery of dilithium crystals so small that I figured I’d post my Star Trek comment on this one

 

What is new here? We’ve seen a couple articles posted about the litium under the Salton Sea over the years. For years now they have positioned themselves as “Lithium Valley.”

Lithium Valley - Wikipedia

 

Weird thing is that historically the lake had a history of drying up and then reforming over relatively short periods. It was there until around 1700, and would have come back eventually on its own likely. Other fun fact is that there’s a theory that the southern end of the San Andreas might be tied to this cycle, the water weight on the fault adds stress, and the low water levels could be a contributing factor as to why it’s overdue.
But the fact that the lake could come back makes long term plans more challenging.

 

Environmentalists will keep it in the court system for decades.

 

The same environmentalists who demanded the electric-car mandate that precipitates the requirement for more lithium?

 

Yeah - we've known of Li in the Salton Sea for sometime. Many are looking at ways to extract it and given the thermal aspect of the brines, it's an intriguing prospect.

While it's already an environmental wasteland, Li extraction here is laden with technical challenges far beyond traditional hard rock extraction, evaporation, or claystone extraction.

 

Speaking of lithium and California, our big state out west has another fire issue. In Monterrey County (between L.A. and S.F.), a lithium battery storage facility has caught fire and is rapidly burning to the ground.

Moss Landing lithium battery facility fire continues to burn, evacuations lifted

 

There is a recoverable amount of lithium in the salton sea. Using evaporation beds would clean up the mess that is the sea and potentially yield enough new lithium to supply us for decades.

 

interesting read on the details of how the formation was created and why they are excited about it

i hope someone is building an AI just to figure out how to most efficiently mine this

then again, lithium might be extinct material by the time they get to it with the material battery advances these days

Geologists Uncover the World’s “Largest Lithium Deposit” Under American Supervolcano, Worth 413 Billion Euros

Drill samples revealed lithium concentrations reaching up to 2.4 weight percent, well above the global average for this type of deposit, which typically falls below 0.4 weight percent. Geologists link this extreme enrichment to a rare, two-stage process. First, lithium-rich volcanic glass was leached by alkaline lake waters, forming magnesian smectite clays.

Later, during a magmatic resurgence about 16.3 million years ago, hydrothermal fluids rich in potassium, fluorine, rubidium, and cesium altered these clays into illite. These fluids traveled through fractures and porous sediment layers, triggering mineral transformation and concentrating lithium levels in the process.

A team of researchers from Columbia University and Lithium Americas Corporation used sensitive ion microprobe techniques to analyze the illite samples. Results showed lithium concentrations ranging from 1.3 to 2.4 weight percent, averaging 1.8 percent.The analysis found strong elemental correlations with boron, rubidium, and cesium, reinforcing the theory that these high concentrations resulted from focused hydrothermal alteration. The mineral responsible, tainiolite, is a lithium-rich illite variant that forms under high-temperature conditions in specialized chemical environments.

When compared to other volcano sedimentary lithium resources, the McDermitt Caldera stands out. Similar deposits in Clayton Valley and Rhyolite Ridge, Nevada, contain between 2,410 and 2,780 parts per million of lithium. By contrast, the illite at Thacker Pass averages over 12,000 ppm, with some samples exceeding 18,000 — making them the most lithium-rich clays found to date.