The Education Branch
Rare earths, explained honestly.
Seventeen elements, four that matter, and one sentence most REE companies won't publish.
01 / What Are Rare Earths?
"Rare" means rarely concentrated.
Seventeen elements, the lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium, split into "light" and "heavy". They are not geologically rare; they are rarely concentrated enough to mine. Deposits come in two main styles: hard-rock (carbonatite and alkaline intrusions, high grade, complex processing) and ionic-adsorption clay (lower grade, soft blanket, simple desorption, the style that supplies most heavy rare earths today). A third matters for Valdur: sediment-hosted monazite, rare-earth phosphate grains weathered out of granite and concentrated by water, which is the search image at Coen.
Whether the deep weathering profiles at Tate River and Selwyn hold their rare earths on clay or as residual monazite and xenotime grains is exactly what the Year 1 deportment programmes test. Where they end up: permanent magnets (the value), catalysts, phosphors, polishing media.
The search images, in 3D
- Tate River
Regolith-hosted rare earths on a fertile granite. Open the terrain →
- Coen
Sediment-hosted monazite in the drainage of the Coen Inlier. Open the terrain →
- Selwyn
Granite-related regolith rare earths beneath a sandstone cap. Open the terrain →
02 / The Magnet Metals
Nd & Pr carry the basket.
NdFeB permanent magnets are the strongest commercially available: every EV traction motor, wind-turbine generator and robot joint uses them. Neodymium and praseodymium, with dysprosium and terbium for high-temperature performance, carry most of a rare-earth basket's value in most market conditions.
Most rare-earth tonnage is lanthanum and cerium, which are near-valueless by-products. A deposit's worth lives in its magnet-metal fraction. Valdur has not yet measured that fraction on its own ground: dysprosium and terbium have never been assayed in place on any of the three permits. We will report the Nd-Pr-Dy-Tb split from full-suite assay when Year 1 has measured it, and not a forecast of it before.
The four that matter
- Nd · Pr
The magnet itself. Neodymium-praseodymium oxide is the bulk of every NdFeB magnet and the bulk of the basket's value.
- Dy · Tb
Keep the magnet magnetic when hot: traction motors, turbine generators, robot joints under load. Heavy rare earths, almost entirely separated in one country, and the elements whose prices moved several-fold during the 2026 export squeezes.
- La · Ce
Most of the tonnage in most deposits, and near-valueless. A cerium anomaly is a pointer to a system, not a grade.
- Y · Sc
Yttrium is the tracer we use for heavy-rare-earth carriers such as xenotime; scandium is assayed in the same suite.
03 / Supply & Demand
Concentrated where it counts.
Mining is concentrated in China, and separation even more so: nearly all heavy rare-earth separation and about nine tenths of magnet making sit in one country, and its 2026 export controls moved dysprosium and terbium prices several-fold inside a year. Western supply-chain policy is responding with price floors, offtake guarantees and new separation capacity. An Australian rare-earth project with a measured magnet fraction fits where allied procurement is looking; measuring ours is the point of Year 1.
Valdur holds three rare-earth permit applications in Queensland and no Mineral Resource. See the Active Assets.
This page goes stale fastest: reviewed quarterly, every figure dated.
What Year 1 measures, permit by permit
- Tate River
Full-suite assay and sequential leach on the 1997 soil traverse lines: ion-adsorption clay or monazite-xenotime placer.
- Coen
Heavy-mineral concentrates from the yttrium drainages: monazite against xenotime as the carrier, then a bulk sample.
- Selwyn
One radiometric instrument traverse to test the published detrital explanation, then full-suite assay of the weathering profile.