McDermitt Caldera minefield: Native American tribes push back on plans to mine world's largest lithium reservoir
HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA: Geologists have reportedly discovered what they believe could be the largest lithium reservoir in the world inside an ancient supervolcano at the Nevada-Oregon border in the US, the Daily Mail reported.
Researchers reportedly found clay containing up to 40 million metric tons of lithium throughout the 28-mile-long McDermitt Caldera.
The amount is allegedly the double of what was found in Bolivia's salt flats, which held the record for the most lithium deposits for a long time.
While scientists are reportedly believed to have found high concentrations of lithium in the caldera since the '70s, the amount is based on estimates as no drilling has taken place in the area.
According to the outlet, the average battery-grade lithium carbonate price was $37,000 per metric ton as of 2022.
This would indicate that the volcano currently has nearly $1.48T of lithium, the Daily Mail estimated.
While the discovery could be extremely important for US economy, it has become a source for the Native American tribed which claimed that the land was sacred.
Will the McDermitt Caldera region undergo mining?
Following the latest discovery, Canada-based Lithium Americas Corporation is reportedly planning to begin mining in the site as early as 2026, the Daily Mail reported.
The corporation has reportedly planned to mine the region for the next 40 years before backfilling the pit.
However, the plan was met with criticism due to the impact of mining on the environment and the beliefs of the Native American tribes who claimed the land was sacred.
Which Native American tribes are opposing the mining?
As per the Daily Mail, the Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock people were reportedly pushing back on mining.
The tribes believed that the project would "authorize almost 100 acres of disturbance from 267 exploration drill sites," the outlet noted.
The tribes were part of the People of the Red Mountain organization, an Indigenous group created to protect the sacred site.
The organization mentioned that there were 91 significant cultural sites in the area.
A statement issued by the group in August read, "The global search for lithium has become a form of 'green' colonialism.'"
"The Caldera holds many first foods, medicines, and hunting grounds for tribal people both past and present," the statement mentioned.
Previously, drilling in the nearby Thacker Pass, owned by Lithium Americas, resulted in the discovery of 13.7 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent.
Per Mongabay, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, People of Red Mountain and members of the Fort McDermitt Tribe filed lawsuits against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for approving mining permits without the tribes' consent.
After several failed attempts to halt construction in 2021, the litigation was reportedly in appeal in 2022.
What did experts say about the lithium deposit in McDermitt Caldera?
Anouk Borst, a geologist at KU Leuven University, who was not involved in the latest study, told Chemistry World, "If you believe their back-of-the-envelope estimation, this is a very, very significant deposit of lithium."
"It could change the dynamics of lithium globally, in terms of price, security of supply and geopolitics," he added.
Tom Benson of the Lithium Americas and Columbia University told the Daily Mail that he began studying the McDermitt Caldera in 2012.
"I soon began to realize that Li [lithium] was the behemoth, occurring throughout the caldera from the northern tip in Oregon to the southern tip in Nevada," Benson said.
"So, I quickly changed my focus to understanding the origin of the Li deposit, as little to no information was known about its genesis at the time," he added.
"This study shows caldera-wide drilling that demonstrates that this smectite to illite conversion at depth only occurs in the Montana Mountains and to the south around the Thacker Pass area," Benson continued.
Benson said that due to the lithium-bearing sediments being place right at the surface of the Earth, the deposit was "one of the least impactful mines ever to be built."
"We will do a process called strip mining in which we dig a small hole to the bottom of the resource, and after about five years, start migrating the pit eastward," Benson stated.
"As we do that, we will start backfilling the pit (with material that has only touched the water, so it is benign to the environment - in fact, likely better because we will have removed As, Sb and other heavy metals from the ground that are contained in the clay)," he explained.
"Once the pit has reached its 40-year mine life, the pit will be completely backfilled and revegetated, leaving it much like how it looks today, if not more vegetated, and at a slightly lower elevation," Benson added.
He also shared that Phase 1 of the project reportedly aimed at mining 40,000 tons annually, yielding $1.6M in yearly revenue.
"The US would have its own lithium supply, and industries would be less scared about supply shortages," Benson said.
When did the McDermitt Caldera form?
The McDermitt Caldera reportedly formed about 19 million years ago and last erupted 16 million years ago, as per the Daily Mail.
Geologists believed that the minerals were pushed from the ground to the surface due to the eruption, leaving behind lithium-rich smectite clay.
The faults and fractures formed from the explosion also paved the way for lithium to rise to the surface of the crater.
Following the last eruption, a lake formed within the caldera. On analyzing the sediments, the team found it was rich in lithium concentrations.
In a study published in Science Advances, the team shared that they hand-picked claystone samples from McDerrmitt Caldera and discovered that they were also high in lithium concentrations.