The Big Lie About Rare Earth Elements: They’re Not Rare at All!

Why Rare Earths Aren't Really Rare

Rare earths. The name sounds mysterious, doesn’t it?
It makes you think of something hidden deep inside the planet — strange metals found only in tiny amounts, in secret mines halfway around the world. You’d imagine they must be incredibly scarce.

But here’s the funny thing: rare earths aren’t actually rare at all.
What’s rare is where they’re found — or more accurately, where they’re found in mineable amounts.

There’s plenty of rare earths scattered throughout the Earth’s crust. The problem is, nature almost never puts enough of them in one place for us to dig up profitably. So really, “rare earths” get their name not from their scarcity in the planet, but from the rarity of them forming concentrated deposits we can actually mine.

The Not-So-Rare Elements

Let’s start with what these things actually are.

Rare earths are a group of 17 metallic elements that include names like neodymium, cerium, and dysprosium. They’re the unsung heroes of modern technology — hiding in everything from electric cars and wind turbines to smartphones, headphones, and even fighter jets. They’re what make electric motors powerful, magnets strong, and screens glow with colour.

So, you’d think these elements must be incredibly scarce to make them so valuable.

But here’s the surprising bit:
Elements like cerium are about as common in the Earth’s crust as copper.
Neodymium, the one used in magnets, is roughly as common as nickel.
Even some of the so-called “heavy rare earths,” like dysprosium, are more abundant than silver.

They’re not hard to find — they’re just hard to find together, in rich concentrations.

It’s like gold dust sprinkled evenly through a beach. You might have gold everywhere, but if it’s spread one atom thick across a continent, you’re not setting up a mine anytime soon.

That’s exactly how rare earths exist — everywhere, but too thinly spread to matter.

Why Deposits Are So Rare

So, if they’re common, what stops us from mining them anywhere?
The answer lies in the geology behind it all.

When molten rock, or magma, rises from deep inside the planet, it’s carrying a whole mix of chemical ingredients: silicon, iron, aluminium, and lots of others, including rare earths. As that magma cools and starts to crystallize, most of those elements fit neatly into the minerals that form first — things like feldspar and pyroxene.

But the rare earths? They don’t fit. Their atoms are a bit too big and a bit too awkward, so they get left behind in the remaining melt. Geologists call these “incompatible elements,” because they’re incompatible with most common minerals. Instead, they stay dissolved in the leftover magma, getting more and more concentrated as everything else turns solid.

It’s like making syrup: as you boil off the water, the sugar becomes thicker and more concentrated. If the process continues long enough — and if the chemistry is just right — those rare earths can finally start to crystallize into their own minerals.

But that takes a very unusual set of conditions. The magma has to be the right type, the cooling has to happen slowly, and there needs to be the right mix of other elements and gases — things like fluorine, carbon dioxide, and chlorine — to keep the rare earths moving in fluids instead of being locked away too early.

It’s a geological balancing act, and nature doesn’t pull it off very often. That’s why economic rare earth deposits — ones rich enough to mine — are genuinely rare.

Where They Actually Form

There are a few main environments where this magic combination happens:

1. Carbonatites – The Rare Earth Goldmines

The biggest and richest rare earth deposits in the world come from something called carbonatites. These are strange volcanic rocks that form from magmas rich in carbon dioxide instead of the usual silica. They’re incredibly uncommon — less than one percent of all igneous rocks — but they’re powerhouses when it comes to rare earths.

As these carbonatite magmas cool, they release fluids loaded with rare earth elements. Those elements crystallize into minerals like bastnäsite and monazite, which are the main sources of rare earths today.

One of the best examples is Mount Weld in Western Australia — one of the highest-grade rare earth deposits on the planet. I’ve made a video on this deposit and you can find the link to that below. Another famous one is Mountain Pass in California, which was the main global supplier for decades. Both are carbonatites, and both owe their richness to that rare blend of carbon-rich magma and late-stage fluid activity that concentrated the elements into mineable ore.

So when we say “rare earth deposit,” what we’re really saying is:
“This place had the perfect geological chemistry and depositional setting for rare earths — and almost nowhere else did.”

2. Peralkaline Igneous Complexes – The Heavy Rare Earth Factories

Another kind of rare earth deposit forms in peralkaline igneous rocks. These are magmas that are unusually rich in sodium and potassium and poor in aluminium — a very odd mix. They evolve slowly, like a thick stew simmering for ages, and as they do, they become packed with all sorts of exotic elements: zirconium, niobium, uranium, and, of course, rare earths.

These rocks tend to concentrate the heavy rare earth elements which are especially valuable for magnets and high-tech electronics.

Deposits like Nolans Bore in the Northern Territory and some deposits in Greenland formed this way. They’re rare because they need a long, stable geological setting where magma can evolve without being disturbed — a patient process measured in millions of years.

3. Ion-Adsorption Clays – Nature’s Subtle Harvest

Then there’s a completely different kind of deposit — one that forms not from magma, but from weather.

In warm, tropical regions, rocks slowly break down over millions of years under constant rain and humidity. As this happens, small amounts of rare earths are leached out of the minerals and carried downward by water. But instead of being washed away, they stick — or adsorb — to the surfaces of clay particles in the soil.

This creates what geologists call ion-adsorption deposits — soft, earthy layers where the rare earths are held loosely enough that they can be washed off with mild chemical solutions. Most of these are found in southern China, which is why China became the world’s top producer of rare earths.

They’re low-grade, but they’re easy to mine — you don’t need explosives or big crushers, just the right kind of gentle leaching. However, these deposits can only form where the climate stays hot, wet, and stable for millions of years, so they’re geographically limited.

4. Placer Sands – Nature’s Sorting Machine

Lastly, some rare earths are found in placer deposits, much like gold. When rocks weather and erode, heavy minerals like monazite or xenotime wash downstream. Because they’re dense, they settle in riverbeds or along coastlines. Over time, waves and currents sort these heavy grains into sandy layers rich in rare earth minerals.

These deposits are common in places like India, Sri Lanka, and parts of Australia. They’re not huge, but they can be an easy source of REEs, especially in beach sands already being mined for titanium minerals.

So What Actually Makes a Deposit “Mineable”?

To turn scattered elements into an ore body, a few key things need to happen:

A source: The rock or magma has to contain rare earths to begin with.

Concentration: The elements must be separated and gathered by geological processes — magmatic differentiation, fluid movement, or weathering.

Preservation: The deposit has to remain intact long enough for us to find it — not eroded away or buried too deep.

Accessibility: It must be located in a way that makes mining practical — good grade, reasonable depth, and stable ground.

Environmental and economic feasibility: Even a rich deposit can be useless if it’s too costly or damaging to extract.

That’s why rare earth mining isn’t just about finding the right rocks — it’s about finding the right balance of geology, geography, and economics.

Why the Name Stuck

So now that we know these elements aren’t rare in the crust, why do we still call them “rare earths”?

The short answer: habit — and a bit of truth.

Even though the elements themselves are common, the deposits that can be mined economically are not. It’s those deposits that are truly rare. For every thousand places on Earth with rocks containing rare earths, maybe one or two will have enough concentrated to make a mine worthwhile.

That’s what the name really means today. “Rare earths” isn’t about chemistry anymore; it’s about geology and economics — the rarity of finding nature’s perfect concentration.

And that rarity matters, because these materials are essential to modern life. They’re in wind turbines, electric vehicles, satellites, and all the green technology that’s driving our future. Without them, much of our high-tech world would grind to a halt.

A Modern Treasure Hunt

The search for rare earths has become one of the biggest mineral exploration challenges of our time. Geologists are looking for subtle hints — magnetic anomalies, carbonatite rings, trace mineral patterns — that point to hidden deposits underground.

Australia, Canada, and the U.S. are all ramping up exploration to reduce reliance on imports from China. Projects like Mount Weld and Nolans Bore show that the right geology can make a big difference, especially when paired with modern processing methods.

But it’s not easy. Rare earths often occur together with other tricky elements like thorium, which is radioactive, or in minerals that are hard to separate. Processing them safely and cleanly requires advanced chemistry and careful environmental management.

So, while they’re common in the crust, turning them into usable materials is still a rare achievement.

The Real Meaning of “Rare”

In the end, “rare earths” are a perfect reminder that rarity isn’t always about quantity.
Sometimes, it’s about circumstance.

The Earth made plenty of these elements. They’re sprinkled through almost every rock, every mountain range, and every grain of sand. But nature seldom gathered them in one place — and when she did, she made us work hard to find them.

So the next time you use your phone, drive an electric car, or turn on a wind-powered light, remember: you’re using something built from metals that aren’t rare because there’s little of them, but because it’s rare for nature to serve them up in mineable form.

Rare earths aren’t rare in nature. They’re rare in opportunity — the rare product of perfect geological conditions that only come together once in a while.

Here's the video we made on this on the OzGeology YouTube Channel: