Summary

Minerals are essential to modern life because they form the foundation of our infrastructure, manufacturing, energy systems, and everyday technologies. Critical minerals and materials—such as lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, and others—are particularly relevant owing to their unique properties and limited supply chains, making them both economically and strategically significant. Demand for these minerals is rapidly increasing, highlighting the need for reliable sourcing and for resilient supply networks to ensure energy security and national competitiveness, and support technological innovation. National political and public attention on minerals, and particularly critical minerals, has increased in recent years as the importance of these minerals has come into sharper focus.

The urgent challenge overall is to meet growing mineral resource needs while ensuring affordability and supply chain security and resilience, as well as maintaining and enhancing environmental and social sustainability.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), particularly its Mineral Resources Program (MRP), plays a central role in addressing the nation’s mineral resource challenges by providing the unbiased science and data needed to inform decision making across government, private industry, and academia. MRP conducts comprehensive assessments of domestic and global mineral resources, monitors supply chains, and develops cutting-edge geoscience tools to improve understanding of mineral systems. It also maintains essential data infrastructure that tracks mineral production, consumption, and trade. By integrating geological, geochemical, and geophysical expertise, MRP has the capacity to guide mineral exploration, support strategic planning, and reduce uncertainty in securing reliable, resilient, and responsible mineral supplies.

At the request of the USGS, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies) was asked to review MRP and consider how it might best position itself to address current and future mineral resource challenges facing the nation.

MRP SCIENCE PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES

The MRP science portfolio currently consists of three major areas: mineral information and supply chain analysis, mineral resource research and assessments, and the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI).

Through the National Minerals Information Center (NMIC), MRP provides data and statistics on mineral production and supply chains. Among the widely used NMIC outputs are the National List of Critical Minerals and annual Mineral Commodity Summaries. The committee concludes that NMIC provides a unique and indispensable service to the nation and the world with its minerals data, information, and analysis. Continuing to refine and enhance the data and information it collects and disseminates and the analysis it undertakes in collaboration with MRP research and assessments will further enshrine NMIC’s critical role in the U.S. government’s mineral ecosystem and lead future resource evaluations.

Mineral resource research and assessments consist of fundamental scientific research into ore genesis and mineral systems as well as regional to national assessments of critical mineral potential. The committee concludes that the mineral resource research and assessments conducted by MRP provide fundamental information on mineral resources—including known, potential, and yet to be discovered resources. MRP’s research generates new knowledge about the physical and chemical environments in which deposits form as well as about locations and amounts of various mineral resources that are or may become available. Its investigations provide private industry with credible, unbiased, and authoritative data on which exploration and resource development are based. Continuing to make these data readily available will be an important component for new applications and utilization.

Earth MRI is a partnership between MRP and state geological surveys with the goal of furthering our understanding of national resource potential through mapping, geophysical and geochemical data collection, and synthesis. The committee concludes that Earth MRI is widely recognized as a huge success, and its continuation and acceleration would provide foundational data for comprehensive assessments of national resource potential and aid in discovery of new areas for mineral exploration, while also supporting myriad other geological programs, including those focused on water and energy resources.

MRP also studies many aspects of mineral resource science, and one area of note that cuts across the three areas of MRP’s science portfolio is mine waste, a common term for low-grade crushed rock or other material left over from earlier mining and processing activity. MRP inventories historical mine features and mine waste, the environmental effects of mine waste, and the potential for mine waste to be exploited as a resource. The committee concludes that mine waste offers an important opportunity to expand domestic mineral production while addressing legacy environmental issues and that mine waste and secondary sources would be valuable in national mineral endowment inventories. The USGS is the only federal entity equipped to lead this research at scale.

PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION

In addition to these major science activities, the committee considered MRP’s program administration, utilization of its data and products, and interaction with key partners and stakeholders.

While MRP has a mission-aligned project framework, an up-to-date and continually evolving and transparent strategic plan, with clearly defined criteria for project selection and resource prioritization, would help ensure that its mission is being met. The committee concludes that refreshing MRP’s strategic plan and strengthening alignment among mission, activities, and stakeholder needs through better planning, communication, and external input would enhance MRP’s effectiveness. Furthermore, while appropriated and supplemental budget increases over the past few years have enhanced MRP’s ability to assess the nationwide resource potential, continued elevated budget levels are needed to complete this work.

MRP also faces serious workforce challenges including recruitment barriers, skill gaps, and administrative burdens that hinder its ability to meet growing national demands for mineral science. The committee concludes that addressing these issues through targeted hiring, academic partnerships, workforce broadening, technical support staffing, and training will be critical to sustaining MRP’s mission and scientific excellence.

DATA AND PRODUCTS

MRP operates robust analytical laboratories and relies on both in-house and contract analyses, but it lacks a clear strategic framework for equipment planning and acquisition and laboratory staffing. The committee concludes that developing and implementing a strategic plan to examine the portfolio of analytical equipment, guide equipment acquisition, and review quality assurance/quality control protocols would strengthen MRP’s analytical infrastructure and long-term scientific capacity.

MRP data are essential and trusted across all sectors, but awareness and utilization could be increased through improved centralized data compilation and dissemination. The committee concludes that improving data delivery speed, scope, and interfaces will greatly enhance data utilization. A change in culture to one that is more data-centric, and that makes greater use of data professionals, is necessary to accomplish these improvements.

PARTNERS AND STAKEHOLDERS

MRP interfaces with government entities at all levels including federal, state, tribal, and international. These groups rely on MRP data, products, and partnerships for minerals data and information when making decisions for their stakeholders. The committee concludes that including government partners and stakeholders in MRP strategic planning and ensuring that data are made accessible in a timely way will facilitate the best decision making to help meet domestic mineral demand.

Academic institutions, which comprise a large user group of USGS mineral data, are key to training the next generation of geoscientists and to conducting research on mineral systems. The committee concludes that while MRP has made effective use of existing collaborations, a clear opportunity exists to expand and formalize these efforts. Strengthening academic partnerships will be critical to addressing the nation’s workforce gap in economic geology and to advancing the science needed to meet future critical mineral demands.

Private industry, another major user of MRP-generated data and knowledge, represents one of the most important stakeholders for MRP. However, current private industry stakeholder interaction is limited and an engagement strategy is not well defined. The committee concludes that by acknowledging the joint interests and goals of discovering and developing new domestic mineral resources, private industry engagement and partnerships could be strengthened and expanded, yielding significant mutual benefit.

Public outreach is also a difficult aspect of MRP’s mission to quantify but essential for its long-term impact and relevance. The committee concludes that by investing in dedicated communication capacity and re-emphasizing public education, MRP can better inform the public, strengthen support for its mission, and remain a leading voice in mineral resource science.

RECOMMENDATIONS

MRP has demonstrated exceptional leadership and innovation through a time of rapid budget fluctuations and renewed national attention on mineral resources, especially critical minerals. MRP has significantly enhanced its contribution to mineral deposit science, exploration, and analysis, and an urgent national need exists to continue and accelerate these activities. The committee recommends the following seven crosscutting actions that will help MRP achieve its mission, support national objectives, and remain at the forefront of innovation and discovery.

Recommendation 1: To lead the nation on minerals issues, the Mineral Resources Program should continue to be proactive and forward-looking in its program priorities, workforce hiring, and science products.

Recommendation 2: The Mineral Resources Program should produce realistically achievable targets for future domestic production of priority critical minerals.

Recommendation 3: The Mineral Resources Program should create a national atlas of resource potential maps to guide mineral exploration and development, assist with land management, and guide future research.

Recommendation 4: To improve stakeholder outreach and data usage, the Mineral Resources Program should prioritize improving data delivery.

Recommendation 5: The Mineral Resources Program should establish an external advisory system to advise on stakeholder priorities and provide feedback on strategy and programs.

Recommendation 6: The Mineral Resources Program should update and continually reexamine its strategic plan with input from a broad set of internal and external stakeholders.

Recommendation 7: To eliminate any barriers to optimal performance, delivery, and innovation, the Mineral Resources Program should promote and incentivize collaboration across all of its programs, across the U.S. Geological Survey, and with its partners.