Why Rare Earth Metals Are Called "Rare"?
Quick take:
Most “rare earths” are not scarce in the Earth’s crust. The “rare” part is about economically usable deposits, not basic existence.
The “earth” part comes from an old chemistry term for oxide minerals.
The bottleneck is often separation, refining, and magnet making capacity, not the rocks.
What counts as “rare earth metals”?
“Rare earth metals” usually means 17 elements: the 15 lanthanides (La to Lu) plus scandium (Sc) and yttrium (Y).
You’ll also see the industry talk in rare earth oxides (REO), since these elements show up in ores as oxides and mixed minerals, not as clean metal chunks.
Are they actually rare? A crust abundance reality check
A few numbers help:
Cerium (Ce): ~66.5 ppm in the crust
Neodymium (Nd): ~41.5 ppm
Lanthanum (La): ~39 ppm
Thulium (Tm): ~0.5 ppm on the low end
Gold (Au): ~0.004 ppm (about 4 parts per billion)
So even one of the least common rare earths (Tm) still beats gold by roughly 100x on crust abundance.
That’s the “misnomer” problem: the name makes people picture scarcity like platinum-group metals, when the real story is different.
So why did the “rare” label stick? Four reasons that still matter:
1) They’re dispersed, so mineable deposits are… rare
Rare earths are spread thin through lots of rocks. What’s uncommon is finding them concentrated enough (and in the right mix) to justify mining and processing at scale. The USGS puts it plainly: rare earths are relatively abundant, but minable concentrations are less common than for many other commodities.
2) The chemistry is annoyingly similar, which makes separation expensive
The lanthanides behave a lot alike chemically. That’s great for predictable material properties, terrible for refining. Getting from “mixed rare earths” to individual products like NdPr oxide, dysprosium oxide, or terbium oxide typically means long separation circuits (often solvent extraction with many stages). This is a big reason costs and permitting friction stay high even when ore exists.
3) History and naming: “earth” meant oxide, and the minerals were unusual
Back when these materials were first characterized, chemists used “earths” for oxide-like substances. The National Academies points out “earth” is an obsolete term for oxide, tied to how they were commonly found.
And the original minerals that revealed these elements were not common finds in early European mining and lab work, which helped cement the “rare” label culturally.
4) Supply concentration makes them feel rare in the real economy
Even if geology is generous, supply chains can still be tight. USGS estimates 2024 world mine production around 390,000 tonnes REO equivalent, with China at ~270,000.
On the processing side, China’s share remains dominant in many assessments, and Europe has been trying to cut exposure because it imports most of its needs from a small set of sources.
This is also why rare earth headlines swing hard on policy. China’s 2025 rare earth exports hit 62,585 metric tons, a multi-year high, even with restrictions discussed during the year.
Price tells you what’s “rare” economically
If rare earths were uniformly scarce, prices would move together. They don’t.
USGS pricing (average, selected oxides) shows the spread:
Cerium oxide: about $1/kg
Lanthanum oxide: about $1/kg
Neodymium oxide: about $56/kg
Dysprosium oxide: about $260/kg
Terbium oxide: about $810/kg
That gap reflects two things:
demand concentration (magnets and specialty uses pull hard on certain elements)
supply limits for some heavy rare earths, plus separation complexity
In short: the “rare” experience in markets often belongs to specific elements in specific forms, not the whole group.
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