A Government Program Hopes to Find Critical Minerals Right Beneath Our Feet
This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here.In a remote and heavily forested region of northern Maine, a critical resource in the fight against climate change has been hiding beneath the trees. In November, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey, or USGS, announced the discovery of rocks that are rich in rare earth elements near Pennington Mountain. A category of metals that play an essential role in technologies ranging from smartphones to wind turbines to electric…