What are offshore critical minerals?
Offshore critical minerals are minerals that:
- are essential to U.S. economic and national security, and
- have high risk for supply chain disruption (because of a lack of known deposits, processing facilities, or recycling facilities, for example).
These minerals — including nickel, cobalt, lithium, and manganese — are key to manufacturing consumer electronics, energy production systems, healthcare equipment, transportation solutions, and defense technologies. The U.S. Geological Survey maintains a current list of 50 critical minerals, underscoring their strategic importance.
What is BOEM’s Role?
BOEM oversees prospecting and leasing activities on the federal seabed, where many of these minerals can be found. Key initiatives include:
- National Offshore Critical Minerals Inventory National Offshore Critical Minerals Inventory. 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.
- Ensuring Supply Chain Resilience. By preparing for domestic production, BOEM helps secure a stable and resilient supply chain, which is critical for maintaining economic stability and national security.
- Strategic Reserve Development. Documenting the location and abundance of offshore critical minerals supports BOEM’s efforts to quantify a strategic reserve that can power the nation’s advanced economy.
Among the various types of marine mineral deposits, BOEM focuses particularly on polymetallic nodules and heavy mineral sands due to their high economic potential relative to the risk of environmental harm.
What critical minerals are found in Alaska?
Alaska’s federal submerged lands contain cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts: hard, layered deposits that form on the surfaces of seamounts, ridges, and other underwater features. These crusts accumulate valuable metals — including critical minerals — over millions of years. In Alaska, these metals are thought to include potentially large deposits of cobalt, nickel and rare-earth elements. Of the U.S. government’s 50 critical minerals, 49 are found in significant quantities in Alaska!
Nearshore Alaska is also rich in heavy mineral sands: i.e., deposits of sand which contain a high concentration of heavy minerals. Although gold, for example, is not a critical mineral, Alaska has a thriving offshore gold-mining industry in State of Alaska waters; and platinum and platinum-group elements were mined from 1936 to 1972 from sands along the coast of Alaska. Potential for tin and other heavy minerals are also associated with the gold-bearing sands. These sand deposits remain rich in these minerals and potentially extend into the federal OCS.
How we work
At BOEM’s Alaska Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Region, critical-minerals work is handled by a small team of geologists in our Resource Evaluation office. Supported by the Marine Minerals Program in BOEM’s Office of Strategic Resources, these scientists work to understand the location and quantities of these minerals on Alaska’s OCS; to assess their potential economic impacts; and to lay the groundwork for potential future development.
