Las Vegas-based MP Materials announced Thursday that it broke ground on a 200,000-square-foot rare earth magnetics manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas — part of the firm’s larger plan to invest $700 million over the next two years into creating a full rare earth supply chain.

"If you can't grow it, you have to mine it" goes the miner's credo. The extraction of minerals, metals and fuels from the ground is one of humankind's oldest industries. And our appetite for it is growing.

A global shortage in semiconductor chips has been wreaking havoc on diverse sectors, including the tech, automotive, consumer electronics industries, and everything in between.

This edition covers recent events that have been hosted by the Society and the broader AusIMM, touches on other materials that may be of interest, and introduces the Committee.

Three days of protests against a major mining conference in Australia have highlighted the resource sector’s role in achieving a low-carbon future was misunderstood, according to an economic geologist based in the United States.

Las Vegas is better known for its elaborate casinos, its high-rolling, jet-setting gamblers, its incredible buffets and, of course, A-list entertainers — Elvis and Sinatra in the old days, and Celine Dion and Garth Brooks today. So how, on this good earth, did a Las Vegas-based firm, become the world’s second-largest producter of rare earth elements (REEs)?

MP Materials plans to establish the complete rare earth supply chain at the mine in less than four years, and its vision has joined a national conversation on restoring rare earth production in the United States.

MP Materials plans to establish the full rare earth supply chain at the mine in less than four years, and its vision has joined a national conversation on restoring rare earth production in the United States.