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NASA Flights Map Critical Minerals from Skies Above Western US


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NASA Flights Map Critical Minerals from Skies Above Western US

A hilly landscape is dotted with colors ranging from bright yellow to deep purple and blue, indicating the presence of different types of minerals.
Various minerals are revealed in vibrant detail in this sample mineral map of Cuprite, Nevada, following processing of imaging spectrometer data.
USGS

On a crystal-clear afternoon above a desert ghost town, a NASA aircraft scoured the ground for minerals.

The plane, a high-altitude ER-2 research aircraft, had taken off early that morning from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Below pilot Dean Neeley, the landscape looked barren and brown. But to the optical sensors installed on the plane’s belly and wing, it gleamed in hundreds of colors.

Neeley’s flight that day was part of GEMx, the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment led by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey to map critical minerals across more than 190,000 square miles (500,000 square kilometers) of North American soil. Using airborne instruments, scientists are collecting these measurements over parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Oregon. That’s an area about the size of Spain.   

Against a bright blue sky streaked with clouds, a white airplane soars over snowy mountains.
An ER-2 science aircraft banks away during a flight over the southern Sierra Nevada. The high-altitude plane supports a wide variety of research missions, including the GEMx campaign, which is mapping critical minerals in the Western U.S. using advanced airborne imaging developed by NASA.
Credit: NASA/Carla Thomas

Lithium, aluminum, rare earth elements such as neodymium and cerium — these are a few of the 50 mineral commodities deemed essential to U.S. national security, to the tech industry, and to clean energy. They support a wide range of technologies from smartphones to steelmaking, from wind turbines to electric vehicle batteries. In 2023, the U.S. imported its entire supply of 12 of these minerals and imported at least 50% of its supply of another 29.

The GEMx team believes that undiscovered deposits of at least some of these minerals exist domestically, and modern mineral maps will support exploration by the private sector.

“We’ve been exploring the earth beneath our feet for hundreds of years, and we’re discovering that we’ve only just begun,” said Kevin Reath, NASA’s associate project manager for GEMx.

The View From 65,000 Feet

To jumpstart mineral exploration, USGS is leading a nationwide survey from the inside out, using tools like lidar and magnetic-radiometric sensors to probe ancient terrain in new detail.

The collaboration with NASA brings another tool to bear: imaging spectrometers. These advanced optical instruments need to stay cold as they fly high. From cryogenic vacuum chambers on planes or spacecraft, they detect hundreds of wavelengths of light — from the visible to shortwave infrared — reflected off planetary surfaces. The technology is now being used to help identify surface minerals across dry, treeless expanses of the Western U.S.

Every molecule reflects a unique pattern of light, like a fingerprint. Processed through a spectroscopic lens, a desert expanse can appear like an oil painting popping with different colorful minerals, including pale-green mica, blue kaolinite, and plummy gypsum.

“We’re not digging for gold. We’re revealing what’s hidden in plain sight,” said Robert Green, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who helped pioneer spectroscopic imaging at NASA JPL in the late 1970s. Like many of the scientists involved with GEMx, he has spent years surveying other worlds, including the Moon and Mars.

A handful of such instruments exist on Earth, and Green is in charge of two of them. One, called EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) flies aboard the International Space Station. Surveying Earth’s surface from about 250 miles (410 kilometers) above, EMIT has captured thousands of images at a resolution of 50 by 50 miles (80 by 80 kilometers) in a wide belt around Earth’s mid-section.

The other instrument rides beneath the fuselage of the ER-2 aircraft. Called AVIRIS (Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer), it’s helping guide geologists to critical minerals directly and indirectly, by spotting the types of rocks that often contain them. It’s joined by another instrument developed by NASA, the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER), which senses thermal infrared radiance. Both instruments provide finely detailed measurements of minerals that complement what EMIT sees on a broader scale.

A man in a yellow spacesuit and American flag-helmet sits on a chair as another man in a NASA shirt connects tubing between the suit and equipment on a table.
A crew of life support staff prepare pilot Dean Neeley for an ER-2 flight. A specialized suit – similar to an astronaut’s – allows the pilot to work, breathe, and eat at altitudes almost twice as high as a cruising passenger jet.
NASA/Carla Thomas

Old Mines, New Finds

In and around the multimillion-year-old magmas of the Great Basin of the Western U.S., lithium takes several forms. The silvery metal is found in salty brines, in clay, and locked in more than 100 different types of crystals. It can also be detected in the tailings of abandoned prospects like Hector Mine, near Barstow, California.

Abandoned years before a magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocked the region in 1999, the mine is located on a lode of hectorite, a greasy, lithium-bearing clay. Geologists from USGS are taking a second look at legacy mines like Hector as demand for lithium rises, driven primarily by lithium-ion batteries. A typical battery pack in an electric vehicle uses about 17 pounds (eight kilograms) of the energy-dense metal.

Australia and Chile lead worldwide production of lithium, which exceeded 180,000 tons in 2023. The third largest producer is China, which also hosts about 50% of global lithium refining capacity. Total U.S. production was around 1,000 tons, sourced entirely from a deposit in northern Nevada. Known reserves in the state are estimated to contain more than a million metric tons of lithium, according to data collected by the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.

Mine wastes are also potential sources of lithium, said Bernard Hubbard, a remote sensing geologist at USGS, and many other byproduct commodities that are considered critical today but were discarded by previous generations.

“There are old copper and silver mines in the West that were abandoned long before anyone knew what lithium or rare earth element deposits were,” Hubbard said. “What has been a pollution source for communities could now be a resource.”

Following a winter pause, high-altitude GEMx flights over the American West will resume in the spring of 2025, after which USGS will process the raw data and release the first mineral maps. Already, the project has collected enough data to start producing a complete hyperspectral map of California — the first of its kind.

The value of these observations extends beyond identifying minerals. Scientists expect they’ll provide new insight into invasive plant species, waste from mines that can contaminate surrounding environments, and natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and wildfires.

“We are just beginning to scratch the surface in applying these measurements to help the nation’s economy, security, and health,” said Raymond Kokaly, USGS research geophysicist and lead of the GEMx survey.

More About GEMx

The GEMx research project will last four years and is funded by the USGS Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (EarthMRI), through investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The initiative will capitalize on both the technology developed by NASA for spectroscopic imaging as well as the expertise in analyzing the datasets and extracting critical mineral information from them.

Data collected by GEMx is available here.

By Sally Younger
NASA’s Earth Science News Team

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Dec 05, 2024
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      As firefighters worked to prevent a wildfire near Perdido, Alabama, from reaching nearby buildings, they saw in an infrared fire map from NASA’s AVIRIS-3 sensor that showed the fire’s hot spot was inside its perimeter. With that intelligence, they shifted some resources to fires in nearby Mount Vernon.NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA Earth Observatory “This is very agile science,” said Robert Green, the AVIRIS program’s principal investigator and a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, noting AVIRIS-3 mapped the burn scar left near JPL by the Eaton Fire in January.
      Observing the ground from about 9,000 feet (3,000 meters) in altitude, AVIRIS-3 flew aboard several test flights over Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas for a NASA 2025 FireSense Airborne Campaign. Researchers flew in the second half of March to prepare for prescribed burn experiments that took place in the Geneva State Forest in Alabama on March 28 and at Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia from April 14 to 20. During the March span, the AVIRIS-3 team mapped at least 13 wildfires and prescribed burns, as well as dozens of small hot spots (places where heat is especially intense) — all in real time.
      At one of the Mount Vernon, Alabama, fires, firefighters used AVIRIS-3 maps to determine where to establish fire breaks beyond the northwestern end of the fire. They ultimately cut the blaze off within about 100 feet (30 meters) of four buildings.NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA Earth Observatory Data from imaging spectrometers like AVIRIS-3 typically takes days or weeks to be processed into highly detailed, multilayer image products used for research. By simplifying the calibration algorithms, researchers were able to process data on a computer aboard the plane in a fraction of the time it otherwise would have taken. Airborne satellite internet connectivity enabled the images to be distributed almost immediately, while the plane was still in flight, rather than after it landed.
      The AVIRIS team generated its first real-time products during a February campaign covering parts of Panama and Costa Rica, and they have continued to improve the process, automating the mapping steps aboard the plane.
      ‘Fan Favorite’
      The AVIRIS-3 sensor belongs to a line of imaging spectrometers built at JPL since 1986. The instruments have been used to study a wide range of phenomena — including fire — by measuring sunlight reflecting from the planet’s surface.
      During the March flights, researchers created three types of maps. One, called the Fire Quicklook, combines brightness measurements at three wavelengths of infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye, to identify the relative intensity of burning. Orange and red areas on the Fire Quicklook map show cooler-burning areas, while yellow indicates the most intense flames. Previously burned areas show up as dark red or brown.
      Another map type, the Fire 2400 nm Quicklook, looks solely at infrared light at a wavelength of 2,400 nanometers. The images are particularly useful for seeing hot spots and the perimeters of fires, which show brightly against a red background.
      A third type of map, called just Quicklook, shows burned areas and smoke.
      The Fire 2400 nm Quicklook was the “fan favorite” among the fire crews, said Ethan Barrett, fire analyst for the Forest Protection Division of the Alabama Forestry Commission. Seeing the outline of a wildfire from above helped Alabama Forestry Commission firefighters determine where to send bulldozers to stop the spread. 
      Additionally, FireSense personnel analyzed the AVIRIS-3 imagery to create digitized perimeters of the fires. This provided firefighters fast, comprehensive intelligence of the situation on the ground.
      That’s what happened with the Castleberry Fire. Having a clear picture of where it was burning most intensely enabled firefighters to focus on where they could make a difference — on the northeastern edge. 
      Then, two days after identifying Castleberry Fire hot spots, the sensor spotted a fire about 4 miles (2.5 kilometers) southwest of Perdido, Alabama. As forestry officials worked to prevent flames from reaching six nearby buildings, they noticed that the fire’s main hot spot was inside the perimeter and contained. With that intelligence, they decided to shift some resources to fires 25 miles (40 kilometers) away near Mount Vernon, Alabama.
      To combat one of the Mount Vernon fires, crews used AVIRIS-3 maps to determine where to establish fire breaks beyond the northwestern end of the fire. They ultimately cut the blaze off within about 100 feet (30 meters) of four buildings. 
      “Fire moves a lot faster than a bulldozer, so we have to try to get around it before it overtakes us. These maps show us the hot spots,” Barrett said. “When I get out of the truck, I can say, ‘OK, here’s the perimeter.’ That puts me light-years ahead.”
      AVIRIS and the Firesense Airborne Campaign are part of NASA’s work to leverage its expertise to combat wildfires using solutions including airborne technologies. The agency also recently demonstrated a prototype from its Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations project that will provide reliable airspace management for drones and other aircraft operating in the air above wildfires.
      NASA Helps Spot Wine Grape Disease From Skies Above California News Media Contacts
      Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee
      Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
      626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
      andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov
      2025-058
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