Rare earth mining on Fuerteventura: a pipedream, say experts

Extracting rare earth elements from certain rocks on Fuerteventura is more of a pipe dream than a realistic and economically viable prospect at present. The low concentration of the minerals containing these elements in the rocks, their vast dispersal across the island, coupled with current market prices and the significant environmental and heritage value at stake, make mining these resources “very complicated”. That is the view of Ramón Casillas Ruiz, a geologist at the University of La Laguna (ULL), who led a public field trip on 10 May as part of Geolodía Fuerteventura 2026.

The nationwide event, organised by the Spanish Geological Society (SGE), was titled ‘Rare Earths in Fuerteventura: Where, How, Why?’ and provided up-to-date scientific information about these unique rocks, which are found nowhere else in the Canary Islands. Specifically, the session discussed how to identify them, how they appear, their distribution across the island, their possible origin, the rare-earth-rich minerals they contain and their proportions, as well as the prospects for mining them.

Scattered rocks, slim prospects

“The main problem is that the rocks containing these rare-earth-rich minerals do not appear in large masses, but in veins and dykes of small thickness and extent, with varying concentrations of these minerals,” Casillas reveals. In his view, the scattered nature of these rocks and the rare-earth-bearing minerals within them (principally pyrochlore, britholite, perovskite, allanite, bastnäsite and monazite) is the first of many obstacles that most scientists believe hinder their economic potential and the viability of any mining operation.

Indeed, the researcher, who has studied these rocks on Fuerteventura for more than 30 years, sees only two scenarios in which exploiting these strategic resources could be profitable: “if rare earths reach an exorbitant price” or “if we had no other source of supply due to possible global trade blockades”. In any other case, the rare earths of Fuerteventura should be left where they are, in pristine condition, if possible.

A unique geological heritage

Because the rare earths on this oceanic island hold a value that many scientists consider far more important: heritage value. Fuerteventura is the only island in the entire Canary archipelago that possesses these ultra-alkaline rocks that host rare earths: pyroxenites, ijolites, syenites and carbonatites. “We still don’t know why it is the only one, but we are certain that they originate from the solidification, below the island’s surface, of a melilite-nepheline silicate magma, very rich in carbon dioxide,” Casillas reveals.

As he explains, this unusual situation was due to very specific conditions of mantle melting that gave rise to this silicate magma. Specifically, a low degree of partial melting, the existence of an enriched mantle and a high proportion of carbon in it when melting occurred between 25 and 35 million years ago. “We haven’t found such old rocks on the other islands,” he states. The reason this happened on Fuerteventura and not in the rest of the archipelago remains, for now, a mystery. “We know there are similar rocks in Cape Verde, and even in the Savage Islands, which are the other oceanic archipelagos that treasure them,” he asserts.

The in-depth study of these rocks and their minerals could unlock some of the unresolved mysteries about the formation of the archipelago. “They have enormous heritage value,” he insists.

Jewels of the crown and market realities

Among all the rocks containing rare earths, the jewels in the crown stand out: the metacarbonatites. “These are carbonatites that have undergone intense contact metamorphism, caused by the proximity of a very high-temperature magma in the process of solidifying beneath the Earth’s surface, which generated an intense transformation of the minerals the rock contained,” Casillas explains. These mineral transformations allowed the rare earths to become even more concentrated, and, in one very specific location on the island, exceptionally recorded rocks (very rich in britholite) with up to 100 kilos of these chemical elements per tonne — equivalent to around 100,000 parts per million. A figure that could raise their mining potential.

However, Casillas plays down expectations. As he notes, these rocks — whose study was published in 2011 in the journal Lithos — are the least voluminous. “What we have most commonly seen are carbonatites with between 2,000 and 3,000 parts per million of rare earths, exceptionally reaching 10,300 parts per million,” he insists. That figure corresponds to two or three kilos per tonne and would be far less attractive for potential mining. On the other hand, there are also pyroxenites with perovskite, related to the carbonatites, which can reach concentrations of up to 7,500 parts per million. By comparison, in other carbonatite-related deposits where these chemical elements are mined, such as Mountain Pass in the USA, the carbonatite bodies containing rare earths are masses of tens of millions of cubic metres.

Exploration permits and local opposition

For now, only one company, the construction firm Satocan, has applied for research permits in several areas of the island. The company is hoping that the Canary Islands Government will grant it exclusive control over some 45 square kilometres of the island’s territory. In total, Satocan has applied for permission to explore 131 grid squares from north to south of Fuerteventura, on the western strip of the island. Meanwhile, the local population has shown total opposition to mining in the area, as have scientists from the Spanish Geological and Mining Institute (IGME) and even the regional president, Fernando Clavijo.

Notably, most of the places where these rare-earth-rich rocks have been found — and for some of which exploration permits have been requested — lie within protected natural areas. “If mining were to go ahead, it would almost certainly be open-pit, and that would be a potential source of pollution,” Casillas concludes.

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Rare earth mining on Fuerteventura: a pipedream, say experts