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mines section

The ground

Mines and deposits

Named operations: the orebody each one sits on, who runs it, what comes out and what comes out with it. Almost nothing is mined alone — most metals arrive as somebody else’s by-product.

Big truck looks small in an open pit mine · Rob and Stephanie Levy from Townsville, Australia · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

All · 44 Copper · 18 Silver · 9 Gold · 8 Cobalt · 7 Molybdenum · 7 Lithium · 6 Nickel · 4 Rare Earths (all) · 4 Iron Ore · 3 Manganese · 3 Neodymium · 3 Palladium · 3 Platinum · 3 Praseodymium · 3 Uranium · 3 Cerium · 2

Australia · 9 Chile · 5 United States · 5 Canada · 4 Democratic Republic of the Congo · 4 China · 3 Indonesia · 2 Russia · 2 South Africa · 2 Argentina · 1 Botswana · 1 Brazil · 1 Gabon · 1 Mali · 1 Mongolia · 1 Morocco · 1 Peru · 1

3 operations. Operator and ownership are as publicly reported by the operators; scale is described rather than asserted with a production figure unless the operator publishes one.

Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.

Mine	Country	Operator	Type	Deposit	Produces	Since
Bayan Obo Inner Mongolia	China	Baogang Group	Open pit	Carbonatite-hosted iron-REE-niobium	Rare Earths (all), Cerium, Iron Ore, Lanthanum…	1957
Southern China Ion-Adsorption Clays Jiangxi, Guangdong, Fujian	China	Multiple state-consolidated producers	In-situ leaching of weathered granite	Ion-adsorption clay	Rare Earths (all), Dysprosium, Gadolinium, Terbium…	1970
Xikuangshan Hunan	China	Chinese state and provincial producers	Underground	Stibnite vein and stratabound antimony	Antimony	1897

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Bayan Obo

Bayan Obo

The largest rare-earth deposit in the world.

Southern China Ion-Adsorption Clays

Southern China Ion-Adsorption Clays

Historically the dominant world source of heavy rare earths.

ChinaIn-situ leaching of we

Xikuangshan

Xikuangshan

The largest antimony deposit in the world, often called the 'antimony capital'.

ChinaUnderground