Rare earth elements (REEs) are a group of 17 metallic elements that play an essential role in modern technologies due to their unique magnetic, optical, and electronic properties.
Despite the name, many REEs are not especially rare in the Earth’s crust, their scarcity comes from the fact that they are seldom found in concentrated, extractable deposits. They occur together and share similar chemical behavior, which makes them challenging to separate during processing.
The rare earths comprise the 15 lanthanides (La through Lu) plus yttrium (Y) and scandium (Sc). They exhibit similar chemical properties, particularly the +3 oxidation state, resulting in comparable behavior in natural systems and during metallurgical processing. These properties also make them difficult to separate.
Among the REE family, neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr) – often produced together as NdPr – are particularly important due to their use in high-performance permanent magnets. NdPr magnets are essential in electric vehicles, wind turbines, robotics, and advanced defense and electronic systems.
Rare earth elements are not mined as pure metals; they occur within mineral hosts. Common REE-bearing minerals include monazite, bastnäsite, xenotime, and ion-adsorption clays. These minerals can occur in carbonatites, pegmatites, granitic systems, and sedimentary environments.
At the Eureka Project, exploration targets NdPr-bearing mineralization hosted within monazite, a phosphate mineral known for its favorable metallurgy and relatively simple processing pathway. Monazite typically contains light rare earth elements such as cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, and praseodymium. Its chemical stability and established processing history make it an attractive host mineral for REE exploration.
In rare earth exploration, the foundation of value lies in what the rocks are made of and how they behave during processing. At the Eureka Project, our “winning hand” is our clean, monazite-hosted NdPr mineralization-a well-understood and globally proven source of light rare earth elements. Mineralogy defines technical success. The mineral host, its chemistry, and impurity profile determine how effectively rare earths can be extracted and separated.
Eureka’s monazite mineralogy is favorable because:
It is a phosphate-hosted mineral, widely recognized for its consistent behavior in processing.
It typically contains high proportions of neodymium and praseodymium, the most valuable magnetic rare earths.
It carries low levels of deleterious elements such as thorium and uranium, reducing environmental and permitting risk.
It supports physical beneficiation and conventional hydrometallurgical flowsheets, minimizing technical complexity.
Grade, expressed as total rare earth oxide (TREO) or as individual oxides (e.g., Nd‚ÇÇO‚ÇÉ, Pr‚ÇÜO‚ÇÅ‚ÇÅ), indicates how much material can be recovered from each tonne of rock.
At Eureka, consistent NdPr-bearing zones give the project meaningful leverage to market demand while remaining technically manageable.
In this context, mineralogy is the winning hand-it gives Eureka intrinsic strength and clarity of processing path. Grade is the bet-it determines how much value can be realized from that position. Without the right mineralogy, even the highest grade can lose its advantage; with the right mineralogy, a project like Eureka holds the technical cards needed to convert discovery into value.
Our disciplined focus on understanding mineralogy first and scaling grade second ensures that we build sustainable, technically de-risked value-based on fundamentals, not speculation.
Rare earth elements are indispensable to a wide range of applications due to their magnetic, luminescent, and catalytic properties:
Tolene Kruger, BSc. (Hons), M.Sc., is a consulting geologist and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information on this webpage. Mrs. Kruger is registered as Professional Natural Scientist (Pr.Sci.Nat.) with the South African Council for Natural Science Professions (SACNASP, Reg. No.: 148182), and a Qualified Person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 – Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.
