Critical Minerals in the Arctic: Forging the Path Forward Contributing Authors: Brett Watson (UAA), Steven Masterman (UAF Affiliate), Erin Whitney (DOE)

This overview explores the issue of critical materials supply chains in the United States, examining the importance of these materials, the challenges associated with their supply, efforts being made to address the issue, and research avenues. [...] Alaska is the largest producer of zinc in the nation, contains the nation’s largest graphite deposit, is the state with the only domestic tin resources and, has been a producer of critical minerals in times of national need, e.g. [...] The University of Alaska is uniquely positioned to assist the national need for a stable critical minerals supply chain, with many of the necessary components to be a center of critical minerals research already in place, including the Mining Engineering and Mineral Processing, Geology, Economics and Chemistry departments, the Mineral Industry Research Laboratory, the unmanned aircraft program, th. [...] The University of Alaska and the State of Alaska are committed to work with our federal partners and Arctic colleagues to help the US and allied nations meet this challenge. [...] In-situ value is an estimate of the in-situ value of the total resources and reserves of the project using prices from S&P, above the specified latitude, as a fraction of the total estimated in-situ value of all properties containing the specified commodity.