Rare Earths 101 Rare earths is a term commonly used to describe
the 15 chemically similar, lanthanide elements which appear
together towards the bottom of the Periodic Table. Two other
elements, yttrium and scandium, which have similar chemical
properties, are often also referred to as rare earths. Rare
earths can be divided into "light" rare earths and "heavy" rare
earths and both are present to varying degrees in all rare earth
deposits. Rare earths are therefore recovered and processed
together before sequential separation into individual rare earth
elements. Prices for individual rare earths in pure oxide form
can vary significantly with, generally speaking, the heavy rare
earths trading at higher values. It should be noted the highest
value heavy rare earth elements, namely europium, terbium and
dysprosium, are contained at elevated levels at Zandkopsdrift by
comparison to a number of other similar deposits being evaluated
globally. It is also noteworthy that both the thorium and
uranium content of the Z