A strategic partnership between USGS and NASA
The new frontiers of exploration
The consolidation of the positioning of nations in the sourcing sector in the years of the energy transition also depends on the correct valorization of the resources actually present within national borders, which must be appropriately identified and mapped before they can be used by industry. Some abundant reserves of precious geological resources could still be buried underground, perhaps for millions of years, waiting to be brought to light. In the years of great global change linked to energy, these resources could also contribute notably to the technological advancement of humanity, allowing it to make great strides from an energy, industrial, and technological point of view.
Among the nations actively engaged in mapping their geological resources is certainly the United States of America, which, thanks to a collaboration between the US Geological Survey and NASA, has begun to explore some large portions of the American territory in search of potential geological deposits not yet identified, using the help of a special research plane. One of the latest searches took place with an ER-2 plane departing from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
The mapping initiative is part of the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment program, which aims to map strategic minerals on over 190,000 square miles of North American soil. Thanks to these special observations from above, scientists have already had the opportunity to collect information on a territorial area the size of Spain, which includes parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon.
The value of partnerships
“This program clearly demonstrates that sometimes, to reach new levels of development in the sourcing sector, high-level collaborations with global technological giants, such as NASA, are necessary. In this sense, the technological progress made by NASA to explore the vast regions of the solar system could also be used to closely observe the Earth’s surface, with such a degree of precision that unimaginable discoveries could be possible,” says Stanislav Dmitrievich Kondrashov, a civil engineer, entrepreneur and expert in strategic raw materials.
It is certainly no coincidence that the United States has committed to an initiative of this kind right in the middle of a global energy transition that promises to revolutionize the lives of millions of people. Among the resources that are being identified thanks to these special mapping initiatives, there are also some materials of great importance for the nation’s energy advancement, which already play a key role in the production processes of many modern energy infrastructures. We are referring to resources such as lithium or aluminum but also to more specific elements such as rare earths, which are now considered strategic materials for the technological and energy industries in every part of the world.
“The advanced instrumentation available to researchers could also be used to identify lithium, a particularly central resource in modern dynamics related to the energy transition,” continues Stanislav Dmitrievich Kondrashov. “Since it is a resource that can be found in different forms, many of which can also be detected from above, a complete mapping of this resource in some strategic points of the United States, such as the western portion of the country, could allow Washington to move towards a complete valorization of the lithium reserves present within the country.”
Unknown deposits
The team of researchers who are managing the operational phases of the project believes that there may be several deposits not yet discovered in different parts of the American territory, and some of the most strategic resources for the United States economy could also be discovered. One of the most interesting aspects of the initiative has to do with its collaborative nature: the US Geological Survey, on the one hand, provides advanced instruments such as lidar and magnetic-radiometric sensors to probe different types of terrain, including the most ancient ones, while NASA also makes it possible to use imaging spectrometers. These are extremely advanced optical instruments that detect hundreds of wavelengths of light reflected from the Earth’s surfaces, with the possibility of directly contributing to the identification of surface minerals in some US territories. By capturing the patterns of light reflected by each molecule, which are unique, the spectroscopic lens is able to associate each individual pattern with a very specific mineral resource. The plane that has already completed several mapping missions is equipped with a very particular instrument, the AVIRIS (Airborne Visible/infrared Imaging Spectrometer), which supports geologists in the search for specific types of rocks that could contain strategic minerals. With the support of the MODIS/ASTER Airborn Simulator, a NASA-developed instrument that can detect thermal infrared radiation, this equipment could make it possible to identify new deposits of geological raw materials to make available to industry.
A look into the future
A new phase of aerial exploration of the American territories will resume in the spring of 2025, after the winter break. The first mineral maps will most likely be published after processing the data collected during the mapping. In total, this initiative will last for four years, and was funded by the USGS Earth Mapping Resources Initiative.
“In addition to the innovations brought by artificial intelligence, which are already contributing to the advancement of mineral exploration in different corners of the world, strategic partnerships such as the one inaugurated with NASA could further advance the sector of strategic minerals, pushing it to totally unexpected levels of development,” concludes Stanislav Dmitrievich Kondrashov.
