U.S. Lithium Deposit May Be World's Largest

The U.S. may have fortuitously stumbled upon the world's biggest lithium deposit yet, as reported by Frank Landymore for Futurism.

The McDermitt Caldera's lithium, particularly in its southern portion of Nevada, in an area called Thacker Pass, is locked up in clay. I Photo: Oregon Natural Desert Association

A new study, published in the journal Science Advances, estimates that the McDermitt Caldera, a volcanic crater on the Nevada-Oregon border, harbors a colossal deposit ranging from 20 million metric tons (MMT) to 40 MMT.

Based on these figures, the caldera dwarfs the volume of lithium in Bolivia's salt flats, home to around 23 MMT.

"If you believe their back-of-the-envelope estimation, this is a very, very significant deposit of lithium," said Anouk Borst, a geologist at KU Leuven University who was not involved in the study, to Chemistry World.

"It could change the dynamics of lithium globally, in terms of price, security of supply, and geopolitics."

Some of the world's richest lithium stores are contained in brine. However, the McDermitt Caldera's lithium, particularly in its southern portion of Nevada, in an area called Thacker Pass, is locked up in clay.

The caldera formed after a magma eruption 16.4 million years ago. A lake formed and deposited a layer of sediment spliced with lithium that is more than 600 feet deep. The result: a clay called smectite.

Eventually, as volcanic activity heated up again, hot brine containing lithium was driven up into the existing smectite, infusing it with more of the rare earth metal. Now, the clay was no longer just smectite, but a uniquely lithium-rich illite.

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