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The average person in the United States uses ~25 tons (the weight of approximately 20 mid-size cars) of raw materials every year to maintain our modern lifestyle. These materials, especially metals, are mined from the rare and unique places where geological forces have concentrated such elements. Most people are well aware of the destruction that has been wrought by past and present mines to obtain these metals, and from an environmental standpoint are actively against many or all mining projects. Such an environmental stance may be difficult to maintain in the future, however, given the urgent need to combat the climate crisis. Put simply, the most likely path to eliminating fossil fuel use is the electrification of the world, or the 'green economy.' This new infrastructure (including energy generation, such as wind farms; energy storage, such as batteries; energy transport, such as electrical wires; and electrified everything, including cars, planes, tractors, lawn mowers, etc.) will require massive quantities of mineral resources in order to achieve at the necessary scale. It is estimated that the world will require annual production increases of ~450% for battery metals such as lithium or cobalt and increases of 10% for base metals such as copper to meet the demand in energy technologies predicted by 2050. This means increasing mine production by over an order of magnitude even for base metals. Further, once used in infrastructure these metals cannot be recycled, meaning that the path to our green future most likely involves more mining of these critical metals. The question then becomes how we can sustainably produce these mineral resources at the least societal and environmental cost. You will: Learn how geological forces create mineral deposits; Learn the basic geological history of Montana; Visit past an environmental Superfund site at a historical mine, and learn what is being done to remediate it; Visit existing mines to learn about the mine production process, environmental problems, and modern remediation techniques;Meet with mining, civic, and environmental stakeholders at a controversial mining project. This course will involve several days on Stanford campus learning about the scale of mineral resources predicted to be necessary for the green economy as well as basic ore geology. We will then travel to the Judson Mead Field Station in the Tobacco Root Mountains of southwestern Montana. This will be our home for a six-day fieldtrip exploring Montana geological history and mining issues. We will return to Stanford to complete a short research project on a controversial mine project, and investigate possible alternatives. Projects will be presented to the class and the broader SoCo community. While we may not reach conclusions to the multi-faceted question about how best to produce these resources, you will know the issues, problems, and possibilities associated with sustainably producing the metals needed for the green revolution.

Field-, lab-, or literature-based. Faculty supervision. Written reports. May be repeated for credit.