Mining

Rare earth mining is the first step in the rare earth supply chain: digging ore out of the ground and upgrading it at the mine into a concentrate that a chemical plant can process. China mined about 270,000 of the world's 390,000 metric tons of rare earth oxide in 2025, roughly 69%, according to USGS estimates. The processing steps after the mine are even more concentrated in China (IEA).

Where rare earth mining sits in the supply chain

The U.S. Department of Energy puts mining and concentration in raw materials production, the first of four stages in the magnet supply chain and upstream of magnet manufacturing (DOE, February 2022). The IEA lists the stages as extraction, beneficiation, chemical upgrading and separation into oxides, followed by metal refining, alloying and magnet manufacturing (IEA, 2026). The mine-site product is a mineral concentrate. Splitting it into individual oxides is separation, a later step.

Which deposits get mined

Carbonatites, which are carbonate igneous rocks, have been the world's main source of light rare earths since the 1960s. Ion-adsorption clays in southern China are the main source of heavy rare earths (USGS Professional Paper 1802-O). Monazite-bearing placer sands were important sources before the mid-1960s, and the USGS says they may be again.

How hard-rock rare earth mining works

Mountain Pass in California, Bayan Obo in China and Mount Weld in Australia are all mined as open pits (USGS). Bayan Obo produces iron ore as well as the rare earth minerals bastnaesite and monazite.

MP Materials lists mining and crushing, then milling and flotation, as the first two of five process steps at Mountain Pass (MP Materials 10-K, February 2026). The ore is crushed and ground into a slurry, and froth flotation carries the bastnaesite to the surface while waste minerals are sent to tailings. MP says it has produced at least 40,000 metric tons of rare earth oxide (REO) in concentrate every year since 2021.

Mineral sands: dredging and dry mining

Mineral sands are old beach, river or dune sands with concentrations of rutile, ilmenite, zircon and monazite (Geoscience Australia). When the ore sits below the water table or in high dunes, a dredge floats in an artificial pond and feeds sand to a wet concentrator attached to the dredge. Shallow or harder deposits are dry-mined with excavators and scrapers (Geoscience Australia).

Spiral separators wash the heavy minerals free of lighter quartz and clay, and a dry circuit then splits them with magnetic and electrostatic separators (Geoscience Australia). Heavy minerals usually make up no more than 15% of a deposit, and monazite is recovered only in some operations, for its rare earths and thorium (USGS). In the U.S., monazite came from heavy-mineral-sand concentrates in the Southeast in 2025 (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026).

Ionic clays: mined by leaching

In ion-adsorption clays, rare earths leached from granite by groundwater end up weakly held on clay minerals in thick weathered soils. The rare earths come off easily with weak acids (USGS). The IEA calls in situ leaching the dominant extraction method for these deposits (IEA).

Where rare earths are mined (2025 USGS estimates)

The USGS estimates world mine production at 390,000 metric tons of REO in 2025, with China at 270,000 metric tons, which works out to about 69% (USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). The U.S. followed at 51,000 metric tons, then Australia at 29,000 and Burma (Myanmar) at 22,000. Smaller producers included Thailand (4,800), India (2,900), Madagascar (2,700), Russia (2,600), Brazil (2,000) and Nigeria (1,500).

The USGS estimated the Burma, Thailand and Madagascar figures from China's reported import data. REEx reported in October 2026 that satellite data had identified 302 new rare earth mining sites in Myanmar's Kachin State since the 2021 coup (REEx).

Environmental issues in rare earth mining

The main rare earth ore minerals, bastnaesite, monazite and xenotime, all carry appreciable uranium and thorium, and monazite can hold up to 20% thorium dioxide. The USGS calls managing that thorium and uranium one of the biggest environmental challenges in mining, processing and mine closure (USGS PP 1802-O).

Thorium barely dissolves, so windblown tailings dust and tailings eroding into water are the priority pathways for mine planning. Uranium dissolves under oxidizing conditions and moves in water. The IEA adds that extraction can concentrate these radioactive materials into tailings and that impacts can outlast the mine (IEA).

The USGS says the scarcity of sulfide minerals minimizes or eliminates acid mine drainage concerns at carbonatite and alkaline-intrusion deposits (USGS). At closure, the open pits at Mountain Pass, Bayan Obo and Mount Weld will likely fill with water, depending on the local water table. Waste rock and tailings piles will stay on site.

Earlier production at Mountain Pass, which began before major environmental oversight, used evaporation ponds (USGS). For clay leaching, the IEA says the process produces acidic leachate and radioactive tailings that can contaminate water and soils if poorly managed.

Why more rare earth mining is only part of the answer

Using a narrower measure, the IEA puts China's 2024 share of global mined production of magnet rare earths at 60% and its share of refined output at 91% (IEA). REEx argues that mining more rare earths is not enough while China controls most processing, and that the full value chain remains the critical challenge (REEx, September 2026).

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