Rare Earth Elements. GLTA! 
Researchers from the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s (ERDC) Environmental Laboratory are assisting the Dominican Republic and its regional government agencies in the hunt for rare earth elements (REE). REEs are specific metallic elements found on the bottom of the periodic table and used in many modern technologies including cell phones, computer hard drives and flat-screen televisions, the ERDC reports.
An initial three-month survey by the ERDC researchers concluded there is a high existence of REEs in the soil throughout the Pedernales region, increasing the likelihood that the exploitation of these resources would be environmentally sustainable. Pedernales is on the southwestern border with Haiti. It is an area slated for major tourism development. In the past, it was a site of major bauxite mining.
The Ministry of Energy and Mining and the National Geological Service had requested technical assistance in the geochemical exploration and potential exploitation of REEs in remote areas of the DR. The US Embassy channeled the request to the US Department of Defense for the assistance.
ERDC reports that Mark Chappell, a senior scientific technical manager at ERDC with substantial expertise in soil geochemistry, and his fellow team members, Yoko Slowey, Charles Andros, Christine Young, and Paige Fowler conducted a three-month preliminary study to address two fundamental objectives: determining the distribution areas of REEs throughout a portion of the DR and the amount of REE concentration in each area.
“For the mission, we were stationed on the western edge of the DR along the Haitian border. We worked with Ministry of Energy members to explore the highlands of the Pedernales district for REEs,” Chappell said.
The DR had discovered they had particularly high and rare elements but needed the resources and expertise to define the size of the areas and the concentrations available to determine if the elements were economically viable to exploit them.
“What makes REEs rare is finding them in concentrations high enough to make mining them economically feasible,” Chappell said.
Only specific types of sensors known as portable x-ray fluorescence technology can be used to detect these elements remotely, without the need for a dedicated laboratory facility. Chappell and his team used handheld x-ray and color sensors to collect data in the DR and then sent samples back to ERDC’s Environmental Laboratory to create a calibration model for predicting REE concentrations through laboratory geochemical studies.
The team also utilized one other alternative for exploration. The Caribbean region of the World possesses soils rich in aluminum which gives it a rusty red color. “There is a correlation between the color of the soil and the REE concentration,” stated Chappell. “We utilized our knowledge of soil geochemistry and the equipment we possess to search for REEs in their mountainous areas.”
Briefings of the researchers’ findings were provided to President Luis Abinader and a proposal of the next phase that consists of obtaining US Army Corps of Engineers Foreign Assistance funds to perform a deeper exploration of how the REEs can be chemically extracted.