CRITICAL MINERALSLarge Lithium Deposits Discovered in a Caldera on the Nevada-Oregon Border

As the push for transition from fossil fuels to clean energy has accelerated, so has the demand lithium, which is used in batteries, and the search for lithium deposits.

Three geologists from Lithium Americas Corporation, GNS Science, and Oregon State University have published an article reporting evidence that the McDermitt Caldera, on the Nevada-Oregon border, may hold some of the world’s largest known deposits of lithium — an estimated 20 to 40 million tons of lithium metal.

“If you believe their back-of-the-envelope estimation, this is a very, very significant deposit of lithium,” says Anouk Borst, a geologist at KU Leuven University and the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium, told Chemistry World. “It could change the dynamics of lithium globally, in terms of price, security of supply and geopolitics.”

“If they can extract the lithium in a very low energy intensive way, or in a process that does not consume much acid, then this can be economically very significant,” says Borst. “The US would have its own supply of lithium and industries would be less scared about supply shortages.”

In their article, published in the journal Science Advances, Thomas Benson, Matthew Coble, and John Dilles report of their study of parts of the caldera, and how they developed an explanation of how so many lithium deposits were formed in the area.

The McDermitt Caldera is about 45 kilometers long and 35 kilometers wide. Earlier research said that about 19 million years ago it was formed as part of the Yellowstone hotspot, which led to the formation of a sequence of calderas.

Bob Yirka writes in Phys.org that in 2017, researchers found that the Thacker Pass, which is one part of the caldera, could hold large source of lithium , possibly among the largest in the world. Lithium Americas acquired a stake at the site and began trial mining operations, but ran into opposition from locals and Native American groups. The company eventually was allowed to mine at the site.

In the last five years, the three geologists have been collecting and analyzing soil and rock samples, looking for the best place to begin major mining operations. To identify the best location for the mine, the researchers – and other geologists — believe they must first offer an explanation for how the lithium was deposited there in the first place.

The researchers offer such a theory in their paper, and Lithium Americas intends to use is in its mining operations.

Yirka writes that the researchers’ theory stipulates that that after a volcanic eruption, a hydrothermal enrichment occurred—magma deep unground pushed its way to the center of what is now the caldera, leading to the formation of the Montana Mountains. In the process, faults, fissures, and fractures were created, allowing lithium to seep up toward the surface. This process also transformed much of the smectite into illite (different forms of clay minerals), which wound up along the southern rim of the basin.

The researchers conclude that this is why lithium is so abundant there.