“We’d have to get clarification from the state,” said Freeman, when asked whether the couple planned to apply for a mining permit. “We know that the Maine mining laws are such that there’s not one single active mine in Maine,” said Mary Freeman, who owns the land with her husband, Gary, a co-author on the paper describing the find. The crystals are among the largest of their kind ever found. Frank Perham stands next to one of the lithium-bearing crystals found at Plumbago North. But under Maine’s recently enacted mining laws, it’s unclear whether it will ever be extracted.
Demand for lithium-ion batteries is expected to grow between five- and 10-fold by the end of the decade, and the world must ramp up production quickly to move away from fossil fuels. Lithium is prized because it is lightweight and can store lots of energy, making it an important component in batteries for electric vehicles and as reservoirs for excess energy generated by wind turbines and solar panels. A more detailed sampling and analysis needs to be done, said Simmons, but the crystals are undeniably “world-class.” William “Skip” Simmons, a mineralogist at the University of New Orleans and co-author on a recent paper describing the findings. “This is going to be a very important source of lithium in the future,” said Dr. Now partially exposed, the deposit is estimated to have a higher percentage lithium content by weight than any other in the world. Measuring up to 36 feet in length, some of the lithium-bearing crystals are among the largest ever found.įormed three miles underground during the cooling of granite magma, the crystals rose to the surface over hundreds of millions of years as the mountains above them crumbled and eroded. Smaller deposits have been known in Maine for decades, but this recent discovery, just north of Plumbago Mountain in Newry, is the first to have a major resource potential.Īnd that potential is staggering: At current market prices, the deposit, thought to contain 11 million tons of ore, is valued at roughly $1.5 billion. NEWRY - The richest known hard rock lithium deposit in the world lies a few miles northeast of the ski slopes of Sunday River and not far from Step Falls, where swimmers can wade in shallow pools formed by hundreds of feet of cascading granite ledge.
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