A consultant says it may be the first time a "significant" germanium deposit has been found in a coal seam in North America.
Formation Resources Inc, of Bismarck, a newly formed unit of PacMag Metals Ltd, based in Perth, was granted a state permit in April to drill about 600 test holes for uranium in southwestern North Dakota. After completing 336 test holes, the company found germanium.
China and Russia mine germanium from coal seams, said Jim Guilinger, a PacMag consultant and president of Arvada, Colorado-based World Industrial Minerals.
"It's a major find in our mind, and it's definitely a whole new wrinkle on the project," Guilinger said. "It's a lot more rare than uranium."
Guilinger said PacMag Metals tested for germanium because of a brief mention in state documents studied by company officials.
"There was a reference in a geological survey from the early 1950s that mentioned evidence of germanium in the same area where we are drilling for uranium," Guilinger said. "We looked for it, and sure enough, it was there."
The US has never had a germanium mine, Guilinger said.
The United States used 66 tons of germanium last year, up from 22 tons in 2003, the US Geological Survey says. But its domestic production of imported germanium has remained flat over the past five years at about 5 tons, the agency said.
Germanium in the US comes from imported material, or from scrap. It is recovered as a byproduct from zinc mines in Alaska and Washington state, and is processed domestically at refineries in Oklahoma and New York, according to the USGS.
