01/06/2014...SACRAMENTO , California , USA ( AP ) - When explorers the far western United States frantically extracted gold , silver and copper from the earth two centuries ago, the land never thought that one day they would have discarded value.

But today , it is suspected that these residues contain minerals needed to manufacture cell phones, computers , cars , televisions, and MRI machines to weapons systems.

This is the " rare earths ," a series of highly folded minerals containing the elements to produce valuable metals.

" Uncle Sam could be sitting on a gold mine ," he said Larry Meinert , program director of the Geological Institute of Mineral America in Reston , Virginia.

The institute, together with the Department of Energy, are campaigning to discover deposits of these minerals that are used to manufacture magnets, light bulbs and cell phone screens , in order to end the monopoly of the Chinese sector.

They were surprised to learn that the elements could be discarded on the ground , until now considered toxic waste and harmful to the environment . Turns out it was a waste can be another's treasure .

" These wastes were never tested for anything other than the minerals sought then ," said Meinert . " If it is discovered that they are valuable , have several advantages: save us from our dependence on China and will give us a resource from which we did not know before ."

The 15 elements were discovered long after decreased adventurers seeking fortune on the west coast of the United States, which had its heyday in the nineteenth century. However, demand has skyrocketed in the past 10 years, technology has produced more and more small and sophisticated devices.

Such minerals are the lanthanum lutetium 57 and 71 elements are called " rare metals " which are actually not as rare but difficult to remove because they appear in trace amounts and are often cheek by jowl .

Unlike other more basic as gold and silver metals, there is no easy way to filter without destroying rare minerals . This makes it extremely difficult to mining and extraction.

" The reason has not been mined in the U.S. is that while China was willing to export rare minerals and meet demand , all was well , like what happened to the oil cartels . When China began to use them as a tool policy , Americans realized their vulnerability and their dependence on one country for those minerals , "said Ian Ridley , director of the Centre for mineral and Environmental Resources of the U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado.

Two years ago , China has increased the prices of these metals. For example, neodymium , which is used to manufacture Prius cars , rose to $ 15 a kilo in 2009 to $ 500 in 2011, while the dysprosium oxide , used in the manufacture of lamps , jumped from $ 114 a kilo in 2010 to $ 2,830 per kilo in 2011. Moreover, once China suspended shipments to Japan , the manufacturer of the Prius, due to a maritime dispute .

That was the time when the U.S. government launched an urgent campaign to seek this important domestic resource sources.

" This is a shock enters supply and demand , it is a worldwide problem . 's Middle class is growing and so is growing the number of people who longs to have things like cell phones ," said Alex King , director of Priority Materials Institute , Ames laboratory , Department of Energy , Iowa "Our goal is to solve this problem in any way possible ."

At the University of Nevada in Reno and the Colorado School of Mineralogy , Institute scientists use lasers to examine samples of rocks and minerals collected in the western United States during the era of gold mining .

"It would be nice if we could recycle all this land , which was considered waste for years, and today is not to dismiss ," said Alan Koenig , a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey in charge of the project.

A sample collected in 1870 from an area near Sparks , Nevada, where workers sought to found a copper mine , looks promising. The scientists found that the rare minerals are found together with other previously considered unrelated .

" The copper mine was never established , but now, after all these years, we have used the land and see that it has high levels of indium , an ingredient of photovoltaic panels. The earth never produced copper, but enlightens us a little about the combination of metals that were previously unaware , "said Koenig .

Indium has also been found in a copper mine , now inactive , which is near the artistic town of Bisbee, in southern Arizona.

Koenig and his colleagues are trying to figure out the composition of all mineral deposits in the country that have been examined in the past 150 years. In some cases , gold and copper were mined totally rocks but left to one side could contain valuable ingredients .

"It's like rewriting history ," he said .

Experts are gathering data from 2,500 samples to better understand whether it is possible to predict where rare metals , based on the presence of other elements are .

" If I had to say a number, I 'd say we've found a few dozen sites that contain high levels of these metals ," said Koenig . "With this project , the objective is to put together a huge database that allows us to predict and set combinations."

Currently there is only one U.S. mine producing rare earths in Mountain Pass, in the desert of southern California. The company owner , Molycorp Inc., aims to produce 20,000 metric tons of metals in the coming months , including one that is used to polish the lenses of telescopes and other glass products .

Geological Institute is confident that companies like Molycorp will help you get your studies to find metal deposits on federal lands or premises .

" If not for the rare minerals , we would only simple cell phones," Ridley said.

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Tracie Cone on Twitter: www.Twitter.com / TConeAP