Posted on 12/22/2017 9:00:22 AM PST by Hamiltonian
Spll chck is ded her 2day!
This literature about strategic minerals at Grand Escalante makes me wonder if taking coal off the market was the real reason for the Grand Escalante designation. The rare mineral deposits make sense, given the Riady connection and what China was doing back then to corner the rare mineral market.
As far as the Steel issue went, if memory serves, some of Traficant's Stand Up for Steel remarks were posted here ~1999, with mixed results.
there is some domestic titanium mining in VA. dunno where the refining is though...
There is also uranium that the locals have been preventing the mining of
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Most of the titanium is in South America.
99% of it is used to make white paint.
Fer et Titane also produces pigment grade TiO2 in Quebec.
Molybdenum futures going up?
The first US national forests were not created until the last decades of the 19th century, well into the age of steel for ships.
Rare earth magnets are used in all of our military planes defensive flares. We can only get them from China. The company that makes the flares has to get special government waivers to use them at great effort and paperwork costs. Big government will be our downfall
The Dept. of Interior project to do a national mineral survey is NOT new, only maybe if done in a coordinated nationwide manner.
I’ve been doing research in Record Group 16, Entry 17, Office of the Secretary of Agriculture, at the National Archives in College Park, Md.
During WW2, “mosaic” and limited aerial surveying of possible mineral deposits were done by a number of government agencies with the help of contractor civilian aerial photography/surveyings companies.
Many maps were made for the Dept. of Agriculture divisions such as the Agricultural Adjustment Agency, the Soil Conservation Service, etc, as well as by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Bureau of Land Management, the Army Mapping Service (AMS), the Air Force/Navy, the U.S. Geological Service, the Forest Service, etc.
The purpose was to try and make as complete an updated national map collection of topographical, soil, aeronautical, forests, and possible mineral deposits from both photographic maps/mosaics of specific regions/areas into quadrangle maps (which were photographed/surveyed by county/subsectors).
In Record Group 51, Office of Management & Budget (the old Bureau of the Budget), they have the records of the old Federal Board of Surveys and Maps, esp. records rel. to the status of Federal mapping projects, Boxes 1-12.
This Fed. Bd of Surveys and Maps had numerous name changes including the Federal Bureau of Surveys and Maps, 1936. During much of WW2, there was created in the Estimates Division, a new position, Assistant to the Division for Surveying and Mapping (1942-52. The Resources and Civil Works Div. came later. In 1967-73, this Division was renamed the Natural Resources Program Division, then it became the Natural Resources, Energy and Science Division (1973-76).
The 1919 original mission of the Board of Surveys and maps was “to coordinate and promote improvement of surveying and mapping activities of the Federal Government”, and this included mineral deposits surveying on the ground and by aerial photography.
What Secy of Interior Zinke has done today is to make what was an often patchwork effort, esp. during WW2, to survey and catalog the mineral resources of the U.S., into a nationally coordinated program.
For more information on minerals exploration, see the U.S. Government’s Bureau of Mines annual “Minerals Yearbooks” which detail the explorations for specific minerals by year, state and even county/mines.
As we used to say in Geology class, “Dig, Baby, Dig”.
Watch that to be reversed as well. We should manufacture everything we need for a war (to the extent possible) in this country. If it costs more so be it. The fact we had to go to China to buy a new beret for the Army was disgraceful.
Re: Your photo
No apparent shortage of the strategic material silicone!
For those in need of a well written, concise summary about minerals, I found this link to be very helpful...
“What Are Minerals”
http://geology.com/minerals/what-is-a-mineral.shtml
Are these samarium cobalt magnets, or one of the “neodymium” family?
The last time I looked, a few years ago, I could buy any grade I wanted in any quantity I wanted, that I had the $$ for, from Chinese suppliers, hindered only by typical customs paperwork and the fact that if they were supplied magnetized, they can’t be shipped in quantity by air.
I can build these into any commercial device I like, provided it passes the same sort of safety regs as most anything else. A “neo” magnet built into some device like a drill or headphones is far safer than, say, lithium based batteries.
Now, granted I don’t have millions of $$ to spend on magnets, so maybe in the case of really big purchases, some sort of restrictions set in??? And, it IS a bit crazy that we have not maintained at least a modest domestic supply for military use, since we have the ore...
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