Publications

Concerns about the lack of domestic production and availability of essential mineral raw materials were a recurring theme throughout the 20th century, particularly in the periods around armed conflicts (Congressional Research Service, 2019). These concerns resulted in the designation of particular minerals as “strategic” or “critical,” terms that commonly depend on the perspective of the...

IntroductionEach mineral commodity chapter of the 2021 edition of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) includes information on events, trends, and issues for each mineral commodity as well as discussions and tabular presentations on domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, 5-year salient statistics, and world production and resources. The...

Over the past few decades (1990–2019), the United States has become reliant on foreign sources to meet domestic demand for a large and growing number of mineral commodities. In combination with recent trends towards progressively concentrated supply of mineral commodities from a limited number of countries, this heightened import reliance may increase the risk to the United States...

Modern technology makes use of numerous mineral commodities whose production is concentrated in a few countries. New research identifies the commodities whose supply disruption poses the greatest risk to the manufacturing sector. While the analysis is applied to the U.S. manufacturing sector, the principles are equally applicable to other economies heavily reliant on imported mineral...

The utilization, preservation, and conservation of the Nation’s resources requires well-informed management decisions. The North Atlantic and Appalachian Region (NAAR) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) supports science-based decision making for Federal, State, and local policymakers to meet the challenges of today and into the future. The science centers in the NAAR have well-deserved...

Trade tensions, resource nationalism, and various other factors are increasing concerns regarding the supply reliability of nonfuel mineral commodities. This is especially the case for commodities required for new and emerging technologies ranging from electric vehicles to wind turbines. In this analysis, we utilize a conventional risk-modeling framework to develop and apply a new...

Each chapter of the 2020 edition of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) includes information on events, trends, and issues for each mineral commodity as well as discussions and tabular presentations on domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, 5-year salient statistics, and world production and resources. The MCS is the earliest...

Mineral resources, and their mining and enrichment operations, are not equally distributed across Earth. The concentration of mineral supply in certain regions, owing to the geology or geography of the mineral resource, raises the level of risk related to supply disruption. Where mineral production coincides with areas prone to natural hazards, supply may be especially at risk. However...

The United States’ supply of critical minerals has been a concern and a source of potential strategic vulnerabilities for U.S. economic and national security interests for decades (for example, see Strategic and Critical Minerals Stockpiling Act, 1939). More recently, with the rapid increase in the types of materials being used in advanced technologies (Fortier et al. 2018a), and...

In addition to increasing interest in the supply risk of minerals produced in China, there is also concern that China’s efforts to mitigate mineral supply risk—through foreign direct investment—may limit mineral availability for other countries in the short-term (due to production capacity constraints). However, little is publicly known about the quantity of global mineral production...

Garnet is the general name given to a group of complex silicate minerals, all with isometric crystal structure and similar properties and chemical composition. The most common garnet minerals are classified into three groups: the aluminum-garnet group, the chromium-garnet group and the iron-garnet group. Worldwide, garnet resources are large and occur in a wide variety of rocks...

Published on an annual basis, this report is the earliest Government publication to furnish estimates covering nonfuel mineral industry data and is available at https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/. Data sheets contain information on the domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, and 5-year salient statistics for more than 90 individual minerals and materials.