23/10/2019
- Chinese geologists think they have formula that could help to increase control of market in the elements hi-tech industries depend upon
- Simple combination of clay mined for porcelain production, granite bedrock and acid rain could point to lucrative sources of rare earths
China has 80 per cent of the reserves of rare earth elements the world needs to keep talking on its smartphones, and geologists in Guangzhou think they know why. Photo: EPA
Geologists in southern China say they have isolated a series of critical factors that could make it easier to find
rare earth elements used in hi-tech consumer goods such as smartphones.
China has more than 80 per cent of the world’s reserves of heavy rare earths such as terbium, dysprosium and holmium concentrated in a few provinces to the south of the country.
The reason for the concentration is one of the biggest puzzles in geology, but researchers at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry in Guangdong province say the answer may be found in a combination of clay deposits, acid rain and granite that is distinctive to southern China.
Professor He Hongping and his colleagues came to the conclusion by testing the interaction between rare earths and different types of clay. Through their research they found that kaolinite – or china clay – was the best at absorbing rare earths from water.
The clay, named after Gaoling village near Jingdezhen, a centuries-old ceramic production centre in east China’s Jiangxi province, is a raw material for porcelain production.
While kaolinite is found in many countries, those places do not have rare earth deposits – probably because of the lack of acid rain, He said.
“You need the right environment.”
He said that rocks that contained tiny amounts of rare earth elements weathered faster in an acid environment, but the acidity could not be too high or the rare earth might run off before it could be captured by the clay.
Why Beijing cut tax rate on rare earths amid trade war
Rainwater with the right natural acidity often occurred in areas around 20 degrees latitude, such as southern China, he said.
The last step was to locate the source rock. Granite formed in volcanic eruptions between 100 million and 200 million years ago is considered to be the main source of rare earths.
He said that part of the Pacific tectonic plate containing rare elements might have been forced under the Eurasian Plate and was pushed to the surface as magma that formed rocks.
Other countries could learn from the Chinese experience, said He, whose team submitted their findings to the research journal Chemical Geology.
Recent discoveries in Vietnam, Australia and North Carolina in the United States conformed to the Guangzhou team’s theory, but there was still more research to do, he said.
“Rare earth deposits are quite unlike minerals such as copper. Sometimes they occur in this mountain but not in another nearby with almost the same geological features. Sometimes they occur in one half of the mountain but not in the other.”
With China and the US engaged in a trade war, and Beijing cutting taxes on mining companies looking for these elements, the pressure was on to unlock the secrets of China’s abundant rare earth deposits, he said.
Does China’s dominance in rare earths hold leverage in trade war?
Dr Huang Fan, associate researcher with the China Geological Survey, said the Guangzhou discovery would help geologists to find more rare earths.
Most rare earth mines were located along the borders between provinces such as Guangdong and Jiangxi, but recently there were discoveries on a plateau in Yunnan province, where few geologists believed rare earths could be found, he said.
“There are many more rare earth deposits out there waiting for us.”
Source: SCMP
Posted in Acid rain, Australia, Chemical Geology, China alert, china clay, China Geological Survey, copper, discovered, dysprosium, formula, Gaoling, geologists, granite bedrock, Guangdong, guangdong province, Guangzhou, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, hi-tech industries, holmium, Jiangxi Province, Jingdezhen, kaolinite, porcelain production, rare earth elements, rich, scientists, smartphones, terbium, trade war, Uncategorized, United States, Vietnam |
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04/10/2019
Chinese geologists think they have formula that could help to increase control of market in the elements hi-tech industries depend upon
- Simple combination of clay mined for porcelain production, granite bedrock and acid rain could point to lucrative sources of rare earths
China has 80 per cent of the reserves of rare earth elements the world needs to keep talking on its smartphones, and geologists in Guangzhou think they know why. Photo: EPA
Geologists in southern China say they have isolated a series of critical factors that could make it easier to find
rare earth elements used in hi-tech consumer goods such as smartphones.
China has more than 80 per cent of the world’s reserves of heavy rare earths such as terbium, dysprosium and holmium concentrated in a few provinces to the south of the country.
The reason for the concentration is one of the biggest puzzles in geology, but researchers at the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry in Guangdong province say the answer may be found in a combination of clay deposits, acid rain and granite that is distinctive to southern China.
Professor He Hongping and his colleagues came to the conclusion by testing the interaction between rare earths and different types of clay. Through their research they found that kaolinite – or china clay – was the best at absorbing rare earths from water.
The clay, named after Gaoling village near Jingdezhen, a centuries-old ceramic production centre in east China’s Jiangxi province, is a raw material for porcelain production.
While kaolinite is found in many countries, those places do not have rare earth deposits – probably because of the lack of acid rain, He said.
“You need the right environment.”
He said that rocks that contained tiny amounts of rare earth elements weathered faster in an acid environment, but the acidity could not be too high or the rare earth might run off before it could be captured by the clay.
Why Beijing cut tax rate on rare earths amid trade war
Rainwater with the right natural acidity often occurred in areas around 20 degrees latitude, such as southern China, he said.
The last step was to locate the source rock. Granite formed in volcanic eruptions between 100 million and 200 million years ago is considered to be the main source of rare earths.
He said that part of the Pacific tectonic plate containing rare elements might have been forced under the Eurasian Plate and was pushed to the surface as magma that formed rocks.
Other countries could learn from the Chinese experience, said He, whose team submitted their findings to the research journal Chemical Geology.
Recent discoveries in Vietnam, Australia and North Carolina in the United States conformed to the Guangzhou team’s theory, but there was still more research to do, he said.
“Rare earth deposits are quite unlike minerals such as copper. Sometimes they occur in this mountain but not in another nearby with almost the same geological features.
Sometimes they occur in one half of the mountain but not in the other.”
With China and the US engaged in a trade war, and Beijing cutting taxes on mining companies looking for these elements, the pressure was on to unlock the secrets of China’s abundant rare earth deposits, he said.
Does China’s dominance in rare earths hold leverage in trade war?
Dr Huang Fan, associate researcher with the China Geological Survey, said the Guangzhou discovery would help geologists to find more rare earths.
Most rare earth mines were located along the borders between provinces such as Guangdong and Jiangxi, but recently there were discoveries on a plateau in Yunnan province, where few geologists believed rare earths could be found, he said.
“There are many more rare earth deposits out there waiting for us.”
Source: SCMP
Posted in Acid rain, Australia, ceramic production centre, Chemical Geology, China alert, China Geological Survey, Chinese geologists, clay, control, copper, discovered, dysprosium, elements, Eurasian Plate, formula, Gaoling, geologists, granite bedrock, guangdong province, Guangzhou, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, hi-tech industries, holmium, Jiangxi Province, Jingdezhen, kaolinite, lucrative sources, market, mined, need, Pacific tectonic plate, porcelain production, rare earth elements, rare earths, rich, scientists, smartphones, terbium, Uncategorized, United States, Vietnam, World |
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28/07/2019
- Hanoi says it has sent several messages to Beijing that a Chinese survey ship vacate the waters located in its exclusive economic zone
- ‘Vietnam resolutely and persistently protects our sovereign rights … by peaceful means on the basis of international laws,’ a foreign ministry spokesperson said
Vietnamese foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang. Photo: Reuters
Vietnam on Thursday called for the “immediate withdrawal” of a Chinese ship in the
, as the stand-off over the disputed waters intensified.
Beijing last week issued a new call for Hanoi to respect its claims to the resource-rich region – which has historically been contested by Vietnam, as well as Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
Hanoi responded by saying it had sent several messages to Beijing insisting that a Chinese survey ship vacate its waters, and doubled down on Thursday with new demands for the vessel’s removal.
“Vietnam has had several appropriate diplomatic exchanges … requesting immediate withdrawal from Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters, while refusing to disclose the ship’s precise location.
“Vietnam resolutely and persistently protects our sovereign rights … by peaceful means on the basis of international laws,” Le Thi Thu Hang added.
The ship, owned by the government-run China Geological Survey, begun research around the contested Spratly Islands on July 3, according to the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Before it was spotted, a Chinese coastguard vessel also patrolled near Vietnamese supply ships in a “threatening manner”, CSIS said.
China has not confirmed the presence of its ships in the area.
China’s neighbours boost coastguards as tensions rise in South China Sea
Beijing invokes its so-called nine-dash line to justify its claim to historic rights to the waterway, and has previously built up artificial islands as well as installed airstrips and military equipment in the region.
The line runs as far as 2,000km (1,240 miles) from the Chinese mainland to within a few hundred kilometres of the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam.
In 2014 Beijing moved an oil rig into waters claimed by Hanoi, sparking deadly anti-China protests across Vietnam.
The latest stand-off in the sea prompted a swift rebuke from the United States over the weekend, calling for an end to China’s “bullying behaviour”.
US accuses China of acting like a bully in the South China Sea
“China’s repeated provocative actions aimed at the offshore oil and gas development of other claimant states threaten regional energy security,” the US State Department said Saturday.
The US has long called for freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, and on Thursday said it sailed a warship through the Taiwan Strait
Posted in Beijing, Brunei, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), China Geological Survey, Chinese ship, Chinese survey ship, demand, disputed, Exclusive economic zone, Hanoi, immediate withdrawal, international laws, Malaysia, Philippines, South China Sea, Spratly Islands, Taiwan, Taiwan Strait, Uncategorized, Vietnam |
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17/07/2019
HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnamese and Chinese ships have been embroiled in a weeks-long standoff near an offshore oil block in disputed waters of the South China Sea, which fall within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, two Washington-based think-tanks said on Wednesday.
China’s U-shaped “nine-dash line” marks a vast expanse of the South China Sea that it claims, including large swathes of Vietnam’s continental shelf where it has awarded oil concessions.
The Haiyang Dizhi 8, a ship operated by the China Geological Survey, on Monday completed a 12-day survey of waters near the disputed Spratly Islands, according to separate reports by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS)
One of the oil blocks it surveyed is licensed by Vietnam to Spanish energy firm Repsol, which was forced last year and in 2017 to cease operations in Vietnamese waters because of pressure from China.
As the Haiyang Dizhi 8 conducted its survey, nine Vietnamese vessels closely followed it. The Chinese ship was escorted by three China Coast Guard vessels, according to data from Winward Maritime, compiled by C4ADS.
In a separate incident days earlier, the China Coast Guard ship Haijing 35111 manoeuvred in what CSIS described as a “threatening manner” towards Vietnamese vessels servicing a Japanese-owned oil rig, the Hakuryu-5, leased by Russian state oil firm Rosneft in Vietnam’s Block 06.1, 370 km (230 miles) southeast of Vietnam.
That block is within the area outlined by China’s “nine-dash line”. A series of dashes on Chinese maps, the line is not continuous, making China’s claims often ambiguous.
Last year, Reuters exclusively reported that Rosneft Vietnam BV, a unit of Rosneft, was concerned that its drilling in Block 06.1 would upset China.
“On July 2 the vessels were leaving the Hakuryu-5 when the 35111 manoeuvred between them at high speed, passing within 100 metres of each ship and less than half a nautical mile from the rig,” CSIS said in its report.
It was not clear on Wednesday if any Chinese ships were still challenging the Rosneft rig.
In 2014, tension between Vietnam and China rose to its highest levels in decades when a Chinese oil rig started drilling in Vietnamese waters. The incident triggered boat rammings by both sides and anti-China riots in Vietnam.
‘READY TO FIGHT’
In response to reports of this month’s standoff, which first emerged on social media, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on July 12 that China’s position on the South China Sea was “clear and consistent”.
“China resolutely safeguards its sovereignty in the South China Sea and maritime rights, and at the same time upholds controlling disputes with relevant countries via negotiations and consultations,” Geng said, without elaborating.
On Tuesday, Vietnam’s foreign ministry released a statement in response to unspecified “recent developments” in the South China Sea.
“Without Vietnam’s permission, all actions undertaken by foreign parties in Vietnamese waters have no legal effect, and constitute encroachments in Vietnamese waters, and violations of international law,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said.
Neither statements confirmed or elaborated on the standoff.
Neither Rosneft nor Repsol immediately responded to an emailed request from Reuters for comment.
In a new statement on Wednesday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Geng acknowledged that there had been an incident with Vietnam.
“We hope the Vietnam side can earnestly respect China’s sovereignty, rights, and jurisdiction over the relevant waters, and not take any actions that could complicate the situation,” Geng told a regular news conference.
On July 11, as China was conducting its survey of the blocks, Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, visited the headquarters of the Vietnam Coast Guard in Hanoi.
State media did not mention the incident, but showed Phuc speaking to sailors on board vessels via a video link.
Phuc told the sailors to “stay vigilant and ready to fight” and to be aware of “unpredictable developments”, the Vietnam Coast Guard said in a statement on its website.
On the same day, Vietnam’s national assembly chairwoman, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, met her Chinese counterpart, Li Zhanshu, in Beijing, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
The two officials agreed to “jointly safeguard peace and stability at sea”, Xinhua said.
Source: Reuters
Posted in Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), China alert, China Coast Guard, China Geological Survey, Chinese ships, embroiled, Hanoi, Repsol, South China Sea, Spanish energy firm, standoff, Uncategorized, vessels, Vietnam, Vietnamese ships, Winward Maritime |
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 