$1 Trillion Trove of Rare Minerals Revealed Under Afghanistan

This is interesting, ATS.....Geological researchers have found what amounts to be a gold-mine of Minerals and other resources under Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, a country nearly the size of Texas, is loaded with minerals deposited by the violent collision of the Indian subcontinent with Asia. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began inspecting what mineral resources Afghanistan had after U.S.-led forces drove the Taliban from power in the country in 2004. As it turns out, the Afghanistan Geological Survey staff had kept Soviet geological maps and reports up to 50 years old or more that hinted at a geological gold mine.

In 2006, U.S. researchers flew airborne missions to conduct magnetic, gravity and hyperspectral surveys over Afghanistan. The magnetic surveys probed for iron-bearing minerals up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) below the surface, while the gravity surveys tried to identify sediment-filled basins potentially rich in oil and gas. The hyperspectral survey looked at the spectrum of light reflected off rocks to identify the light signatures unique to each mineral. More than 70 percent of the country was mapped in just two months.

Wow! "There's gold in them there hills........"

Afghanistan may hold 60 million tons of copper, 2.2 billion tons of iron ore, 1.4 million tons of rare earth elements such as lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, and lodes of aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, mercury and lithium. For instance, the Khanneshin carbonatite deposit in Afghanistan's Helmand province is valued at $89 billion, full as it is with rare earth elements.

This has me wondering if this discovery has anything to do with the conflict(s) which are raging in the area right now. It sure makes sense if so. We've seen this same thing repeated over the globe. Create the situation for conflict to occur, sell weapons to both sides, send in contractors to rebuild infrastructure, and rinse then repeat. This may or may not be the situation here but my conspiracy sensors are on alert. What says ATS?

news.yahoo.com...

a reply to: lostbook
old news,the chinese are already mining most of it.

originally posted by: blkcwbyhat
a reply to: lostbook
old news,the chinese are already mining most of it.

I knew there was a chance of that being the case. Oh well....Isn't there also a trove of minerals under Palestine?

Shhh. We are supposed to act ignorant and say we are glad for the Afghan people. They will now have lots of slave work with dangerous conditions and low pay, but everyone will be working enough to buy chinese goods sold to them by American and European business men.

Oh shoot, I am not supposed to say I know what is probably going to happen and ruin it for everyone.

as a US citizen, it only adds to the many reasons we're there in the first place.

olde news in many a circle.

carry on.

ugh..

[ETA]

and they're sure as hell not focused entirely on 'spreading democracy'

betcher backside on that. !!

originally posted by: blkcwbyhat
a reply to: lostbook
old news,the chinese are already mining most of it.

Say whaaaat? In 2011 Afghanistan signed a contract with CNPC, a Chinese oil company, to develop a few oil fields along a river. And Afghanistan gets to keep roughly 70% of the money earned from the sale of these petroleum resources. Afghanistan signed a development contract with another Chinese company about 7 years ago for billions of dollars, in which the Chinese company, China Metallurgical Group, is mining copper. Considering the vast resources in the country, and considering China is only taking out oil and copper, I don't see how you can say China is "already mining most of it," as it simply is not true. Only a very small fraction of the overall mineral deposits have even been touched.

And another thing is that last year China was already attempting to "alter" their contract with the Afghan government over the copper mining contract. In fact, due to a variety of factors, what was perceived as a potential boom in Afghan mining developments really slacked off, and Chinese interest plummeted to a certain extent. My point is that by no means is China doing a whole lot of mining in Afghanistan, and what they are doing is focused mainly on copper. The Afghan government, in my opinion, has proven that it is not a slave to US interests, and that it is autonomous to a large extent, or functioning. I say this because the US was complaining of potential corruption involving the contract for Chinese mining, in which US companies were beat out when the bidding took place. So these contracts did not automatically go to the US. There were other countries that were beat as well, and who complained. So it might seem that if the US wishes to mine in Afghanistan, they will have to get the contracts legitimately...which means bribing people, lol.

There was some talk over the Afghan mining laws last year, and there were some things that needed to be changed, I don't really remember the details, but I don't know what ever happened with that. I think that was part of the reason that Chinese interest had seemed to wane a bit. I say we call ourselves 14er's and drive covered wagons to Afghanistan from the US, where we will mine gold and hit the mother lode. Atlantic Ocean be damned.

a reply to: JiggyPotamus

You're well informed on this topic......! Kudos to you!

a reply to: lostbook

Seems to add more credence to ancient aliens landing on earth and excavating it's minerals... creating their empires of Babylon and Sumer, which is now modern Iraq.

The Russians knew about the treasure trove back in the 80s, thats why they were there.

Surely they arnt 30 years ahead of the US, are they.

The Afghan war was never about terrorism, blaming religion instead of telling people the truth.

It was a resource grab.

a reply to: lostbook

Wow loads a treasure and compared to the US debt is nothing.

Made me think there about a market reset. Strongest position afterwards would be physically holding worldwide reserves.

a reply to: lostbook

This has me wondering if this discovery has anything to do with the conflict(s) which are raging in the area right now.

This is really old actually, they found the trillion dollar vein of lithium back a few months or so after they invaded. 2002?

originally posted by: boncho
a reply to: lostbook

This has me wondering if this discovery has anything to do with the conflict(s) which are raging in the area right now.

This is really old actually, they found the trillion dollar vein of lithium back a few months or so after they invaded. 2002?

That makes perfect sense and fits in nicely as a reason for all of the conflict in the area.

Wow. A whole $1,000,000,000,000?

We could pay off our entire budget deficit. From 2012.

Guess they need to locate another $16,000,000,000,000 or so to handle the rest.

Is it going to take them another 2000 years to start mining it? Or, will they just grow opium, and export that, and call it a day, like they have been doing?

a reply to: Catacomb

So true. The junk they grow above the ground is worth much more than what is under it.

Anyone interested in mining these resources would also need to take into consideration the lack of infrastructure and unfriendly natives.