Top 5 'rare earth' minerals: What are they?

Setting off speculation that China is manipulating exports to punish certain trade partners, Beijing announced in July it was slashing its six-month export quota of so-called 'rare earths' by 72 percent. Speculation continued this week with reports of an expanding embargo of the minerals.

But the so-called "rare earths" are neither rare nor does China have a lock on them. Although China produces 97 percent of the world's rare earths, it contains only 30 percent of the world's supply. The United States, Russia, and Australia all have significant reserves of the 17 elements essential in semiconducters, lasers, and other high-tech gadgets.

While mining them has proved uneconomical at usual world prices and environmentally harmful, that may be changing. Click through the following slides to read how rare earths are important to your daily life.

- Stephen Kurczy, Staff writer

Enlarge

Euro currency is pictured in the regional central bank in Bremen, Germany. The rare earth element of europium, fittingly, is used in the European currency as an anticounterfit measure; a true Euro radiates red under certain conditions.

2. Europium

If you've held a Euro banknote, then you've held europium.

Named after the Western continent, europium (atomic no. 63) is luminescent. For that reason, it's used in Euro banknotes as an anticounterfeiting phosphors. Under certain conditions, the banknote will appear red. Europium is also used in LED screens in TVs for red coloring.

For the Monitor, science reporter Pete Spotts reports: "Europium, for instance, helped drive the shift from black-and-white to color TV by turning the dull reds in early TV screens to reds that popped. Erbium placed at intervals along fiber-optic lines amplifies the light carrying data, allowing it to travel long distances."