Yes, MP produced many rare earths. However, it was the source for Europium, and some CRTs actually proudly displayed the fact that they had red phosphor from that mine.
I'm not sure how that is being behind in information, unless you were taking my statement of "that's kind of not a thing now" to mean that was the only thing they produced.
Ah, That's what I thought you meant. That the mine itself was not really a thing now. Sorry for misunderstanding. I was very happy to hear from the mine director that our work there was to reestablish the mine in competition with China.
Interesting observations while I was there:
Sitting in the parking lot after work I could look across I15 and see tailings from other smaller mines up in the mountains. I've no idea what was mined there at all, maybe exploratory diggings?
Another observation which you can see on Google earth as well. When daily passing by the pit up to the tanks on the highest level, (The largest tank was the one I was called in to work on) we could look down into the pit from one vantage point on the road and the bottom of the pit is filled with water which has an odd green coloration I doubt was due to algae. Some sort of dissolved metals or mineral combination.
Another observation: some of the rocks that were pointed out to us along the side of the access roads had a purplish blue tint to them which the mine engineer told us was due to heavy deposits of rare earth metals.
High winds at the mine were frequent which forced us to have the porta potties tied down with a cable and weighted with large rocks inside. So, you'd go into those things and not have too much room for your feet due to the rocks inside weighting it down. Kind of funny actually.
Last day I was there was on loading out our equipment which turned into a very long day with hit dry winds and heat. By the end of that very long shift my lips were cracked and bleeding in spite of all the water I drank.
I don't know how common it is there for midsummer rains but one day the rain started and it was very fierce with high winds and lightning. We had to leave in a hurry after securing our equipment as best we could. As we left there was concern to get out before the roads were impassible due to rapid erosion and movement of dirt and rocks. Just heading down the pass on I15 it was obvious we didn't leave too soon as washed out sediment and rocks began crossing the freeway.
No prob. I just pointed out the one because I'm in electronics and ran across it quite often.
I'm just a welder but I love learning new stuff about places I've been. Like that pesky metal beryllium. I was on a crew where we were building a tank for a processing place in Utah, not sure where it was actually mined but I presume it was somewhere close by?
The manager or overseer there also took me on a personal tour since I had stepped aside on day one to ask him a few questions. A very nice, intelligent and amiable person. He actually showed me a small ingot of the pure metal.
Going in we had to change out of our personal clothes and dress up in underwear, socks and coveralls, all stuff provided for us to dress in. Then going out we had to dump all the clothes into bins and take a shower, no exceptions. You find out things about each other doing that. Like one guy had a fake leg I never suspected.
Anyway, I never knew about this metal and how toxic it is. Then years later I am disassembling microwaves for the magnets and some of the wiring and someone told me to never fuck with the emitter since it has a tip of beryllium. Why it's used in the microwave I have no idea but it's enough to know so I don't go getting too curious about that part.
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