Idaho’s Cobalt Belt is a 34-mile-long desirable stretch of ore tucked under the Salmon River Mountains that’s considered “globally significant” by mining companies. And miners are interested in that cobalt: a hard, brittle metal used in electric vehicle batteries. On Oct. 7, Australia-based Jervois Global opened the only cobalt mine in the U.S. there to much fanfare.

There are many factors to consider regarding possible future human exploration on Mars. Unlike robotic equipment, such as a rover , a drone or a probe, a human being needs, just to say the basics, oxygen to breathe and food to eat. Not to mention the effects that such a long and unusual journey into deep space can have on an astronaut's body.

When most media discuss the materials critical to the energy transition, they focus on the big names: lithium, nickel, copper, sometimes a dash of aluminum or a hint of graphite. They can be forgiven for whizzing past indium, gallium, cadmium or tellurium, because mining companies often do as well. These elements are produced as byproducts of mines that aim for metals with bigger markets, like zinc or gold.

Leena Cycil, geochemist and team member on the Mars 2020 mission, believes that algae may be part of the "secret" to human survival on Mars. Together with Libby Hausrath, she studies extremophile algae and tries to grow them under pressure and luminosity conditions similar to those found on Mars . To date, three promising species have been identified.

Falling water levels in Lake Mead in the United States have brought out a number of shocking things in recent months – sunken boats, old warships and even human remains. Now, scientists have revealed a new discovery: rocks covered in volcanic ash that rained down on southern Nevada during eruptions that occurred about 12 million years ago.

While the world is marveling over the first images and data now coming from NASA’s Perseverance rover mission seeking signs of ancient microscopic life on Mars, a team of UNLV scientists is already hard at work on the next step: What if we could one day send humans to the Red Planet?

By studying meteorites believed to be remnants of the catastrophic breakup of a dwarf planet, researchers are learning how lonsdaleite, a particularly hard type of diamond, forms in nature.

Coming up with the minerals for producing and using energy and fuels will require a wide range of critical metals. One of these rare earth elements, tellurium for example, is gaining in popularity for use in photovoltaics, or solar panels. As global demand for solar panels continues to increase, so is the need for critical metals like tellurium.

One study conducted at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas found that solar farms provide better habitat than the wide-open desert.

Low water levels in Lake Mead caused by the decades-long, climate change-fueled drought in the West, have revealed a number of secrets: dead bodies, shipwrecks and now ash from past volcano eruptions.

The Colorado River is being used more and more due to the worsening drought in the west. As the water levels plummeted, several shocking discoveries, such as human remains and sunken ships, have been uncovered. Scientists discovered that events that took place millions of years ago.

In Lake Mead, on the border between the US states of Nevada and Arizona, scientists observed whitish rocks of volcanic origin. They come from various periods of volcanic activity, and the oldest are many millions of years old.