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Biomining goes underground

Nature Geoscience volume 8, pages 165–166 (2015)Cite this article

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Ore bodies buried deep in Earth's crust could meet increasing global demands for metals, but mining them would be costly and could damage the environment. Reinventing an ancient technology for bioleaching metals could provide a solution.

Demand for base and precious metals, as well as rare-earth elements, continues to grow. Extracting these materials from deep within Earth's crust by conventional mining methods is often uneconomic. Researchers and mining companies are therefore investigating alternative and more sustainable methods for metal extraction that can recover deep-buried metals economically, while minimizing their impact on the environment. A growing school of thought is that the most ancient form of biomining — a biotechnology that uses microorganisms to enhance the extraction and recovery of metals from ore deposits and mineral waste1,2 — could be used in an updated process to provide one such alternative.

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Figure 1: Mineral vein.

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  1. Barrie Johnson is in the College of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor LL57 4UF, Wales, UK,

    D. Barrie Johnson

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  1. D. Barrie Johnson
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Correspondence to D. Barrie Johnson.

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Johnson, D. Biomining goes underground. Nature Geosci 8, 165–166 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2384

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