A-Level Environmental Science exam question: Since the 1950s, the exploitation of the rare-earth elements has increased from a few tonnes per year to over 150 000t per year. They are used in a wide range of applications, including new developments in transport, electronics and healthcare.
Although the main metals used following the industrial revolution are still important, economic development since the mid 1900s has involved the use of relatively small quantities of a much wider range of metals.
Many rare-earth elements have a relatively high mean crustal abundance, but they rarely occur in locally concentrated deposits.
Figure 1.1 shows details of the reserves and production of rare-earth elements in seven countries.
Use the data in figure 1b to calculate the missing values