An Australian company has launched an exotic mining project just outside Joshua Tree National Park in a critical desert tortoise habitat, an area the company’s director calls “the world’s growing exotic region.”
The company, Dateline Resources Ltd., says historical samples from a site in the Pinto Mountains south of Twentynine Palms have found enrichment in materials essential to power electric vehicles, wind turbines and defense systems.
The United States is heavily dependent on China for its supply of these vital minerals, a major national security risk that the Trump administration wants to address with a series of regulatory changes and financial incentives aimed at boosting domestic production.
The desert tortoise, as seen in Music Valley in the Pinto Mountains, is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act due to habitat loss and predation.
(Gary Coronado / For The Times)
The project is still in its early stages, and it is unclear whether further testing will confirm the presence of rare earth elements in a large enough area to warrant extraction. The site is about 100 miles southwest of the country’s only fully operational rare earth mine – Mountain Pass operated by MP Materials, in which the US Department of Defense holds a 15% stake.
It’s also steps away from Joshua Tree National Park, one of the most popular wilderness areas in the country where about 3 million people visit each year. The 1,200-square-kilometer park and surrounding public lands are home to sensitive flora and fauna that environmentalists say would be harmed by a massive mining project that could drain water, draw traffic and release toxic waste.
“This is truly one of the most iconic places in America,” said Chance Wilcox, California desert program manager for the National Parks Conservation Assn., as he stood atop a rocky outcrop inside the project’s plan Friday.
Beside him, a wooden stake marked the corner of the mining claim. About 100 meters away, there was a metal pole that marked the boundary of the park. In the valley below sat the entrance fee to the east.
If mining continued here, visitors would likely be able to see the work while driving into the park, Wilcox said. “It just emphasizes this company’s lack of respect for our nation’s jewelry,” he said.
The day of the day did not return messages seeking comment on the job. The company also operates the Colosseum mine in the nearby Mojave National Preserve, which the Trump administration has made a priority in its efforts to build a domestic supply chain for precious minerals.
Dateline first announced the project — the Music Valley heavy rare Earths project — late last month, saying it had received 57 applications covering 1,140 acres and had invested $1 million in Fermi Critical Minerals Inc., an American company that owns uranium and rare earths projects in several western areas. Dayline later expanded the trail by adding 969 more claims totaling 19,380 acres, which states later ceded.
The westbound Twentynine Palms Highway passes through downtown Friday in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
(Gary Coronado / For The Times)
The company now has claims in an area of approximately 32-square-miles, most of which is within the Bureau of Land Management’s jurisdiction.
Geologists from the US Geological Survey began identifying rare earth minerals in the Music Valley area in 1954, enriching reporting samples in dysprosium, terbium, yttrium and ytterbium, Dateline Resources said in a press release. The company is now training modern exploration techniques on outcrops of a 1.8 billion-year-old metamorphic rock called Pinto gneiss.
Although the rare earth will be the main focus, the exploration will also explore the potential of gold mining – the area is full of old, small adits and shafts.
The project is located in an area known as an area of high environmental concern. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has identified the sweeping habitat as critical to the survival of the Mojave desert tortoise, which is endangered in California due to threats including development, disease, predation by ravens and climate change.
The land around the Pinto Mountains Wilderness is also home to badgers, bighorn sheep and Mojave-toed lizards. Giant yuccas and barrel cacti dot its steep slopes.
A chuckwalla lizard burrows into a rock in the Pinto Mountains.
(Gary Coronado/The Times)
On Friday, desert hyenas and hippos filled the access road, part of which goes around the reserve. The chuckwalla died on the rock. Next to it, a desert tortoise had emerged from its burrow to graze on the grass – a rare sight that excited Wilcox. “This is a really special place,” he said.
If this area turns out to be an important source of heavy rare earth elements, it would be significant since the US does not have it, said Daniel O’Connor, founder and CEO of Rare Earth Exchanges, a website that covers the rare earth market. Mountain Pass produces mainly rare earth elements, which are often very abundant.
“All of our military equipment — missiles, radar, fighter jets — all require these rare earths,” O’Connor said.
Still, he said, even if the U.S. were to begin producing heavy rare earths, the country would remain dependent on China for processing — a complex, multi-stage task that involves chemically separating the metal elements. Companies controlled by the Chinese treasury currently separate and refine about 90% of the world’s supply of rare earths, and about 90% of the special magnets used to build them are also produced in China, he said.
A mural depicting miners at Dirty Sock Camp is painted on a wall in the town of Twentynine Palms, Calif.
(Gary Coronado / For The Times)
O’Connor described the Music Valley project as original and speculative, harkening back to a mining tradition dating back to the Wild West when prospectors lifted samples showing high concentrations of minerals in an effort to loosen investors’ wallets. There is no way to know how widespread or systematic that focus is without technical reports that reveal the mineral content and quality of the project, he said. Dateline doesn’t appear to be issuing such an industry-standard report, he said.
Rare earth mining often involves extracting ore with a jackhammer or dynamite and grinding it to the ground before treating it with chemicals — processes that are energy-intensive, produce toxic waste and can release radiation that is normally present in the ore, he said.
“It’s hard to think of a worse place for a large industrial project than the sensitive desert tortoise habitat on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park,” wrote Brendan Cummings, director of conservation for the Center for Biological Diversity, in an email.
The construction of the applications could eliminate public access to the area and permanently disrupt the area, drawing traffic and light pollution as well as damaging wells and groundwater stores, he said. Given those potential impacts, he doubts developers can be legally granted the necessary federal, state, and local permits to proceed.
Conservationists also point to Dateline’s history of operating the Colosseum mine as a concern, saying the company violated National Park Service rules and damaged the environment.
“They have no respect for public lands, national parks or the law, so there is reason to be deeply concerned about this proposal,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), the ranking member of the House environment committee said the project has “red flags flying in every way.”
“We need domestic and important minerals from friendly countries and responsible actors,” he added, “but it doesn’t mean we need them everywhere or at any cost.”
