Overview
Offshore critical minerals are hard minerals that are in limited supply and that are essential to U.S. economic and national security. Critical minerals include nickel, cobalt, lithium, manganese, and rare earth elements. Uses for critical minerals include consumer electronics, energy production, healthcare, transportation, and defense. The current list of 50 critical minerals is maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
BOEM oversees prospecting and leasing activities on the federal seabed where many of these minerals can be found. BOEM is developing a National Offshore Critical Minerals Inventory (NOCMI), utilizing information collected from collaborative work with our partners at USGS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to locate and assess deposits of these minerals and their environs.
Domestic production of critical minerals will help assure a resilient supply chain and represents a potential revenue source. Offshore critical minerals have the potential to provide a strategic reserve of these essential components of the Nation's advanced economy. To quantify this reserve, BOEM actively documents the location and abundance of offshore critical minerals.
Five different types of marine mineral deposits contain most offshore critical minerals. BOEM has the highest interest in polymetallic nodules and heavy mineral sands due to their high economic potential relative to the risk of environmental impacts.
Locating the Minerals
All the BOEM Regions are likely to contain critical minerals:
- Alaska: Heavy minerals and crusts
- Atlantic Ocean: Heavy minerals, crusts, and nodules
- Gulf of America: Heavy minerals and brine lakes
- Pacific Coast: Phosphates and sulfides
- Remote Pacific: Nodule and crust deposits
BOEM works with other agencies to survey, explore, and characterize portions of the federal seabed that may contain critical mineral deposits.
Current Activities
BOEM’s Marine Minerals Program brings together experts across BOEM to complete projects that provide the information needed for mineral resource management. The USGS, NOAA, and State agencies are frequent partners in these projects.
Recent projects include mapping brine pools on the seabed of the Gulf of America; surveying the deep ocean south of Hawaii; investigating a historic equipment testing site on the Blake Plateau in the mid-Atlantic; surveying the deep ocean east of American Samoa; exploring and characterizing hydrothermal sulfide deposits near the western Aleutian Islands; and funding the development of innovative technology to identify minerals.
For More Information
The Marine Minerals Program’s Critical Minerals website at National Offshore Critical Minerals Inventory contains additional information about marine minerals and the laws and regulations used manage these valuable resources.
The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) manages development of U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) energy, mineral, and geological resources in an environmentally and economically responsible way.
