Rare Earth on the Mid Pacific floor.

[Anymouse]

Great little news blurb here, for anyone who may have missed it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/04/...r_pacific/

I, like the author, love the concept but am unsure of its ability to be a source of these materials. Not exactly low hanging fruit.

And the method that they propose using to extract them is strikingly similar to the method used to extract gold from low-grade ore in Summitville, Colo. ( http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summitville_mine )

After our marriage in the Colorado mountains, my wife and I went up to the EPA cleanup site of the Summitville Mine. Thinking some group might do that to the whole Pacific Ocean is scary.