Ottawa outlines eligibility for companies seeking C$1.5bn in critical minerals infrastructure funding

Nial McGee - The Globe and Mail | November 1, 2023 |

Noront’s Esker Camp at the Ring of Fire. (Image: Noront Resources | Facebook.)

Ottawa is finally getting ready to accept applications for a C$1.5-billion infrastructure fund to support critical minerals mines, with stakeholders in Ontario’s Ring of Fire hoping they will be among the recipients.


Natural Resources Canada announced Tuesday that projects eligible to apply for the new Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund include clean energy and transportation projects that support critical minerals mines. Eligible recipients include the private sector, the provinces and territories, and Indigenous groups.

CMIF is being set up because the federal government committed to the funding over seven years to support critical minerals infrastructure as part of its April, 2022, budget.

Funds will be made available for early stage projects that are still in the planning and engineering stage, as well as “shovel ready” projects that are nearing construction and have already been permitted. The government said it expects to start taking proposals in the late fall for shovel-ready projects.

Companies can apply for up to C$50-million in funding, while provincial and territorial governments can request up to C$100-million for public projects.

Canada currently has 31 minerals that it has deemed critical, but the federal government has identified six that are a priority: lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements. While the country has made huge strides in building out its electric battery manufacturing infrastructure, there are few Canadian companies who mine or refine the critical minerals needed for these factories.

Photinie Koutsavlis, vice-president, economic affairs and climate change with the Mining Association of Canada, said that while the broad strokes of the government’s plan for spending on critical minerals infrastructure appears to be promising, the execution will be crucial. So far, she said, the government has moved slowly on this initiative, as more than 18 months have passed since it was announced.

Moreover, given the narrative the government espouses about how “we need to capture this generational opportunity in critical minerals” and better compete with the United States, which is spending hundreds of billions through the Inflation Reduction Act, the ability to follow through is key, Ms. Koutsavlis said.

“Through the last two budgets, the mining sector has done very well with respect to government announcements, but the execution and the implementation of these programs have been lagging,” she said.

The undeveloped Ring of Fire region in Northern Ontario is one of Canada’s highest profile critical minerals projects with massive infrastructure challenges, and one of many projects that will look for funding from Ottawa as part of CMIF. The Ontario government has already committed to funding $1-billion, or about half of the costs for roads into the Ring of Fire.

Qasim Saddique, principal consultant at Suslop, has been working with Marten Falls of Northern Ontario, which is leading federal environmental impact assessments into proposed roads into the Ring of Fire and co-leading another assessment alongside Webequie First Nation. The roads would connect both the two Indigenous communities and the isolated Ring of Fire mining camp to the provincial highway network some 300 kilometres to the south. The road project was last estimated to cost C$2-billion.

Mr. Saddique said that the two First Nations will be making an application for funding as part of the CMIF, as he concedes that its funding needs are immense.

“This one project would definitely eat up that entire pot,” he said. “Having said that, I do think it’s the largest project of its kind in the country.“

Located 550 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, the undeveloped Ring of Fire region has no access to the grid, or road connectivity, meaning that any metals that may eventually be mined there have no way of getting to market.

Glencore Cuts 2023 Nickel Production Guidance
By Reuters
Oct. 30, 2023, 


LONDON (Reuters) -Commodity trader and miner Glencore on Monday cut its nickel production guidance for this year due to maintenance and strikes but reiterated its expectation that profits from its trading division would be $3.5-$4.0 billion, above its long-term guidance range.

Glencore maintained its overall 2023 guidance for copper, zinc, coal and cobalt output.

Its trading division includes coal, oil, liquefied natural gas and related products, as well as metals, whose profit hit a record $6.4 billion in 2022, up 73% from the previous year.

The London-listed miner's long-term yearly trading guidance earnings is for a number between $2.2 billion and $3.2 billion.

Glencore, which in June offered to buy Teck's steelmaking coal business as a standalone unit, having been rebuffed twice in its $22.5 billon bid to combine the two companies, lowered its guidance for full-year nickel production by 9% to around 102,000 metric tons.

"Nickel has been reduced to reflect ... maintenance outages at the Sudbury smelter and a longer than expected recovery from 2022 strike action, together with a lower full-year revision for Koniambo," Glencore said in a statement.

Glencore's own sourced nickel output was down 16% at 68,400 tons in the first three quarters of the year, while its own sourced copper production of 735,800 metric tons fell 5%.

Copper, nickel and cobalt are key materials for electric vehicles, a key plank of the energy transition.

Glencore's own sourced cobalt production year to date was 32,500 tons down 2% from the same period last year, zinc output at 672,100 tons fell 4% and ferrochrome output at 873,000 tons dropped 21%.

"Ferrochrome production has also been marked lower, due to additional smelter off-line days on account of electricity pricing and load curtailments in South Africa," Glencore said.

(Reporting by Pratima Desai; editing by Jason Neely and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Macron lands in Putin’s backyard seeking new friends and uranium

Bloomberg News | October 31, 2023 | 

French President Emmanuel Macron. (Stock image)

After finding itself suddenly unwelcome in its traditional sphere of influence, France is casting further afield.


That’s why president Emmanuel Macron will travel to energy-rich Central Asia this week to visit Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, two suppliers of the uranium that powers the country’s nuclear reactors.


The trip aims to boost France’s energy security, according to two people familiar with the French president’s thinking, who declined to be named when discussing matters of diplomacy. These efforts are in keeping with a wider European effort to diversify away from the Russian fossil fuels on which the bloc was formerly so reliant.

But there is a second motive, the people said, and it involves tempting the former Soviet republics to look beyond their own dependence on Russia. French officials suggest the war in Ukraine has unsettled long-established relationships in the region, and that creates an opportunity.

Central Asia’s vast reserves of oil, gas and minerals put it at the center of a contest for influence in the region that has habitually been Russia’s stomping ground.

China is extending its reach through President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road infrastructure project, the US is seeking to bolster its political presence, while the European Union is striving to bind the region into a trade and energy corridor that would run through the Caucasus and on to Europe, bypassing Russia.

France already boasts some large investments in the region; for instance French nuclear company Orano SA — formerly known as Areva — exploits uranium deposits in Kazakhstan via a joint venture with state-owned Kazatomprom. Deepening Orano’s presence will be on the menu of discussions, according to one delegation insider, who declined to be named discussing details of the trip.

Yet France’s pursuit of uranium is freighted with a greater urgency in the wake of a coup this July in Niger, which last year was second only to Kazakhstan as the EU’s biggest source of the raw material. Orano had to stop processing uranium ore at one of its facilities in the Saharan republic because international sanctions against the military junta were hampering logistics, it said last month.

“Kazakhstan is key to France’s energy security,” said Michael Levystone, a Paris-based researcher at the French Institute of International Relations. “Macron’s visit will act as a reminder that Paris is ready to step up cooperation.”

In addition to being the biggest supplier of uranium to France, last year Kazakhstan was also its second-biggest source of crude oil, down from first place in 2021, according to figures from the French economy ministry.

Sparked by the invasion of Ukraine and powered by deeper concerns about the advance of China, Kazakhstan is one of a few countries where earlier this year G7 nations jointly resolved to deepen their partnerships, according to a diplomat familiar with the Group-of-Seven leaders’ internal deliberations.

That means that in courting the land-locked republics wedged between China and Russia, Macron finds himself part of a broader trend.

Last week the foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan met with the 27 EU Member States’ foreign ministers for the first time, according to an EU statement about that meeting, while in September President Joe Biden met their leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. That same month, Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz hosted them in Berlin.

In France’s case, the overtures take place as it contends with increasingly limited room for maneuver in its usual sphere of influence. Since 2020, coups in nine sub-Saharan countries have variously spooked or sent home French diplomats, and in some cases the threat to French interests has been powered by Russia, in the shape of the mercenary Wagner Group.

Macron’s search for allies in Russia’s own backyard is helped by the Central Asian countries’ ambivalence toward the war in Ukraine. As they adhere faithfully to the west’s sanctions on Russia, at least on paper, his Nov. 1 to Nov. 2 trip arrives just as these nations’ commercial relationships are themselves in flux.

The French president will travel with a delegation of 15 business leaders from the energy, agrifood and mining sectors, according to an Elysee official, including utility Electricite de France SA and engineering company Assystem SA, which provides expertise to build nuclear reactors.

They will have noticed Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s plans for a referendum on a nuclear power plant that would reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Kazakhstan also has plans to start extracting rare-earth metals next year, at a time when Macron has called for France to be less dependent on Chinese raw materials crucial to Europe’s electric-car industry.

Even so, earlier this year the French president made a state visit to China, underscoring a strategy of distancing himself from the US’s more hawkish stance on Beijing, and in line with his attempts to expand France’s influence in Asia.

Macron recently became the first French president to visit Mongolia, later signing a deal to source more uranium, while least year he was the first French leader to attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit with the countries of the Pacific Rim.

(By Ania Nussbaum and Samy Adghirni)

Teck parts ways with president and COO Harry Conger after massive cost overruns at QB2

Niall McGee - The Globe and Mail | October 30, 2023 | 

The QB2 project is one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper resources.

 (Image courtesy of Teck Resources.)

Teck Resources Ltd. is parting ways with Harry “Red” Conger, one of the executives who oversaw the company’s cost overruns at its QB2 copper mine.


The Vancouver-based miner announced on Monday that Mr. Conger, who is chief operating officer (COO) and president, is retiring effective Wednesday.


Teck chief executive Jonathan Price is taking over as president, while the company searches for a permanent COO replacement for Mr. Conger.

Just last week, Teck announced that the capital cost estimate at QB2, its flagship copper mine, had spiraled to roughly $8.7-billion, or 85% higher than a $4.7-billion estimate in 2019.

Mr. Conger started as COO of Teck in 2020 and was named president last year.

QB2 was sanctioned in 2018, started production earlier this year and is in the early stages of ramping up to full output. The mine is located high up in the mountains of northern Chile.

When Teck announced the latest $600-million capital cost escalation on Q2B last week, its shares fell by nearly 9%.

Teck has revised the construction costs of the mine upward multiple times over the past few years, blaming engineering problems, challenges in building its associated port and the inflationary impact of the covid-19 pandemic among many other issues.

Teck is increasing its exposure to copper as the metal trades at a significantly higher valuation to coal, owing to its usage in lower carbon energy sources, and its designation in Canada as a critical mineral. At the same time, the company wants to divest its coal business because of the fossil fuel’s poor environmental, social and governance (ESG) credentials.

Since the spring, Vancouver-based Teck has been in talks with companies interested in buying its core metallurgical coal business, after it failed in an earlier attempt to spin it off to shareholders. Among the parties interested in the unit are Glencore PLC of Switzerland, Japan’s Nippon Steel, Indian conglomerate JSW Steel and a consortium led by Canadian mining veteran Pierre Lassonde.

Column: Mining faces gulf between ambition and reality on energy transition, China

Reuters | November 1, 2023 | 

Wind turbines. (Reference image by moonjazz, Flickr).

Mining companies in the West are facing two overarching challenges in trying to produce enough metals to enable the energy transition, and at the same time build alternative supply chains to lessen their dependence on China.


The problem is that there is a vast gulf between the scale of the ambition and the reality of what’s actually happening, and what’s likely to happen in the next few years.

This gap was the hidden theme at this week’s International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Sydney, that brings together miners, investors and government policymakers.

There is little doubt that Australia is a country well-placed to play a major role in supplying many of the metals vital to the energy transition.

It is already the world’s largest producer of lithium and iron ore, the key raw material for steel.

It is also a top supplier of copper, nickel and zinc and has proven reserves of other critical minerals such as cobalt and rare earths.

The challenge is developing the resources, building new mines and perhaps developing downstream processing, rather than merely exporting ores as has happened in the past.

The previous models for developing mines appear no longer effective, and even if some projects do progress, they are nowhere near enough to provide enough material for the energy transition.

In the past, junior miners raised equity capital, conducted exploration and proved up a resource. At this point they could try and raise more capital, seek big-pocketed partners or hope that a large mining company would buy them out.

While this happens to some extent, the story at IMARC is largely one of dozens of small mining companies seeking financing, and most ending up with little to show for it.

Raising equity capital is hard given the absence of deep pools of retail investor funds and the reluctance of institutional investors to fund risky, long-term projects.

The major miners have pulled back on acquisitions in recent years, preferring to run operations leanly and return cash to shareholders, and if they do invest it’s largely been brownfield expansions of existing operations.
Limiting China

The irony is that in seeking cash to try and reduce reliance on China’s dominant role in the energy transition supply chains, the mining industry in the West has been exposed as lacking capital and motivation to invest.

Michael Willoughby, global head of metals, mining and transition materials at HSBC, told a forum at IMARC that there is capital available for mining, but it’s located in developing countries such as China, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

These countries also tend to have governments that are prepared to offer deeper support, such as 1% loans and tax holidays for mining and processing investments, Willoughby said.

Australia’s federal government last week doubled its funding for critical minerals to A$4 billion ($2.52 billion), but this is largely viewed as a small amount by the industry.

To put the funding in perspective, a junior mining company seeking to develop a cobalt mine in New South Wales will need about A$1 billion to build and commission a mine.

If the government were to fund that project, it would take a quarter of the total money available and deliver a relatively small volume of just one of the metals deemed vital to the energy transition.

Even the US Inflation Reduction Act, which offers around $369 billion in support to decarbonize the economy, is unlikely to be enough to build an entire supply chain for critical minerals that lessens dependence on China.

It’s likely that Western governments will have to increase support to develop new mines and processing industries, as well as reform policies so that private capital is encouraged to invest.

In addition governments will have to improve on the time taken to approve new mines, while juggling the need to ensure that they are as environmentally friendly as possible.

But if Western countries and companies are serious about building new mines and processing facilities and reducing their reliance on China, the total bill is likely to be measured in trillions of dollars, rather than the billions currently being committed.

At the same time, Western countries are attempting to move from fossil fuels in electricity generation and transportation to renewable alternatives such as hydrogen, solar, wind and battery storage.

Once again, these supply chains are dominated by China, and once again reducing dependence is possible, but costly.

What’s not being talked about is how all the new mines, mineral processing and renewable energy equipment is going to be funded.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, Clyde Russell, a columnist for Reuters.)

(Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Canada, US must spur critical mineral mining, refining at home to secure clean energy shift, American envoy says

Steven Chase - The Globe and Mail | October 31, 2023 | 

Graphite Creek project in Alaska. Photo by Graphite One.

The U.S. ambassador to Canada David Cohen says the shift to clean energy from fossil fuels by Canadian and American governments will succeed or fail depending on whether they can obtain a sufficient supply of critical minerals to make electric vehicle batteries.


Both countries need to build up their mining and refining, and battery making capacity quickly.

“We need to help each other to make this possible – to drive demand for electric vehicles, to help fund critical mineral mines, and to move manufacturing, refining, and mining back to North America, in a responsible way. The United States and Canada are investing billions to make all that happen,” Mr. Cohen told the Canadian Club of Ottawa in a speech Tuesday.

As it stands, he said, China has an unusually large presence in the critical minerals business.

“We’re too reliant on too few, geopolitically unreliable countries,” the envoy said. I don’t need to remind you of what happens when the supply chain breaks down. We lived through that during the pandemic and nobody wants to live through that again.”

He framed the the enormity of the challenge.

“I suspect everyone in this room knows we have a problem. Simply put, we don’t have enough of these minerals today to meet the world’s – and our own – growing demand,” Mr. Cohen said. “Our current supply chain for these minerals – from extraction to production to recycling – is simply not diverse enough for the future that’s coming.”

Demand for critical minerals to make electric vehicle batteries will skyrocket in the years ahead.

He noted the International Energy Agency forecast that demand for most minerals essential to the clean energy transition will increase four to six times over the next decade and a half. “For some minerals, the increase will be exponential. By 2040, graphite demand, for example, will increase by 25 times, and the demand for lithium by 42 times,” Mr. Cohen said.

“As it stands today, China plays an outsized role in the critical minerals industry at every step along the supply chain. This is particularly true when it comes to mining and refining,” the U.S. envoy said.

According to a 2022 Brookings Institution report, China refines 68% of all nickel globally, 40% of copper, 59% lithium, and 73% of cobalt. China also accounts for most global production of mineral-rich components for battery cells.

“Most significantly, China holds 78% of the world’s cell manufacturing capacity for electric vehicle batteries, which are essential for a transition to electric batteries as we try and wean ourselves off of fossil fuels,” Mr. Cohen said.

“Given the current state of play, the status quo will not provide the energy security that Canada, the United States or our democratic friends and allies need for our cleaner energy future.”

He said the U.S and Canada and allies have “woke up to the problem” and legislation such as the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The measure offered billions of dollars in incentives to battery-makers and credits for electric vehicles that the legislation says “are extracted or processed in any country with which the United States has a free-trade agreement.”

Now, he said, the U.S. and Canada are trying resolve the problem and “investing billions” to make it happen.

Mr. Cohen said the Inflation Reduction Act and other measures such as the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are strengthening regional supply chains, “which are the lifeblood of our economies.”

He said Canadian companies are also benefiting from these funding and investment opportunities, citing the example of Graphite One was awarded $37.5-million from the U.S. Department of Defense under the Defense Production Act to support the development of its graphite mine in Alaska.

As well, he said, at least three Canadian companies stand to benefit from an Oct. 13 announcement by U.S. President Joe Biden to award seven regional clean hydrogen hubs have been selected to receive $7-billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to accelerate the move to low-cost, clean hydrogen. Mr. Cohen noted that Enbridge is participating in the Mid-Atlantic Hub, TC Energy in the Heartland Hub, and AltaGas in the Pacific Northwest Hub.

Mr. Cohen celebrated the Canada-United States relationship, saying both countries were at the forefront of efforts to support Ukraine, under invasion Russia, as well as Israel, which was attacked by Hamas in October.

“We’re leading a coalition of the world’s democracies to support Ukraine – and now to support Israel as well,” the envoy said.

He said the two countries are not only bound together by important treaties, such as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, but also by economic relations.

“We’re tied together by trade: a truly incredible C$3.25-billion-plus in goods and services cross our shared border each day, generating or supporting millions of jobs in both of our countries,” he said.

“This makes Canada the number one trading partner for the United States – and it makes the United States the number one trading partner for Canada. In addition, more than 30 U.S. states count Canada as their number one export

SASKATCHEWAN

BHP to inject $4.9 billion into Jansen to double potash output

Cecilia Jamasmie | October 31, 2023 

BHP’s first production at Jansen is expected in 2026. (Image courtesy of BHP.)

BHP (ASX: BHP) said on Tuesday it would invest $4.9 billion in stage two of its giant Jansen potash project in Canada, as it aims to double capacity by the end of the decade.


The investment adds to the $5.7 billion the world’s largest miner is pouring into stage one of the potash project in Saskatchewan, and an investment of $4.5 billion the company sunk into Jansen before its first phase was even approved.


BHP considers potash, used in crops fertilizers, as one of its pillars of future growth. It expects potash demand to increase by 15 million tonnes to roughly 105 million tonnes by 2040, or 1.5% to 3% a year, along with the global population and pressure to improve farming yields given limited land supply.

With the additional investment announced on Tuesday, BHP expects Jansen to become one of the world’s largest potash mines, doubling production capacity to approximately 8.5 million tonnes per year (Mtpa) in late fiscal 2029.

“This is an important milestone that underscores our confidence in potash and marks the next phase of the company’s growth in Canada,” chief executive officer, Mike Henry, said in the statement

.

Source: BHP’s presentation at BMO Farm to Market Conference 2022.

The first stage of the project is 32% complete and progressing as per schedule, BHP said. The second stage is expected to take six years and produce about 4.36 mtpa at a capital intensity of about $1,050/tonne, which is in line with BHP’s strategy to invest in large deposits that have high barriers to entry and offer strong margins.

The company’s move shouldn’t come “as too much of a surprise”, BMO analyst Alexander Pearce wrote in a note to investors.

“A final investment decision decision in FY2024 [has been] well flagged and there has been increased focus on the project in recent presentations (…) However, nearer term, the higher combined cash costs ($105-120/t, +5-20%), and a slightly lower run rate for Stage 1 is likely a slight negative,” Pearce said.

BHP had tried to tap into the fertilizer market for some time. In 2010, it unsuccessfully bid $38.6 billion for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, which in 2018 merged with Agrium Inc. to form Nutrien (TSE, NYSE: NTR).

Jansen had the potential to produce 16-17 million tonnes of potash a year under a four-phased development. This would account for about 25% of current global demand.

BHP had originally planned to begin production at Jansen in 2027. Market conditions, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sanctions on Belarusian potash, prompted it to bring forward stage 1 first production into 2026.

GEMOLOGY
Lucapa finds Lulo mine’s third-largest diamond

Cecilia Jamasmie | November 1, 2023 |

The 208-carat diamond recovered at Lulo mine.

 (Image courtesy of Lucapa Diamond.)

Australia’s Lucapa Diamond (ASX: LOM) has recovered a 208 carat diamond at its prolific Lulo mine in Angola, the third-largest ever found at the operation.


The company said the high-quality, type IIa diamond was unearthed at the lizeria, or terrace area, of its Mining Block 31 portion of Lulo, known for delivering high-value stones.

The diamond is also the second 100-carat-plus stone Lucapa retrieved in October, following the recovery of a 123-carat, type IIa rough at the start of the month.

The mine, which hosts the world’s highest dollar-per-carat alluvial diamonds, began commercial production in January 2015. Only a year later, it delivered the largest ever diamond recovered in Angola — a 404-carat white stone later named the “4th February Stone”.

It is the second 100-carat-plus diamond found at Lulo in October.

 (Image courtesy of Lucapa Diamond.)

The operation has delivered 39 diamonds weighing more than 100 carats each to date.

Lucapa has a 40% stake in the Lulo mine. The rest is held by Angola’s national diamond company (Endiama) and Rosas & Petalas, a private entity.

Angola is the world’s fifth diamond producer by value and sixth by volume. Its industry, which began a century ago under Portuguese colonial rule, is successfully being liberalized.

Letšeng Mine Yields 117.47-Carat Rough for Gem Diamonds

This exceptional find marks the fourth time in the current year that Gem Diamonds has unearthed rough diamonds exceeding 100 carats, reinforcing the mine's reputation for producing high-quality gemstones

diamond news network

Published on : 

01 Nov 2023

Gem Diamonds announced the recovery of a 117.47-carat rough diamond from its Letšeng mine in Lesotho. This marks the fourth time this year that the company has unearthed a rough diamond exceeding 100 carats.

The discovery of this gem-quality, type IIa diamond occurred on October 29, with Gem Diamonds revealing the news on Tuesday. This find comes in the wake of a 101.96-carat high-quality rough diamond discovered on September 28, a 163.91-carat yellow diamond on June 22, and a 122-carat stone found on March 5.

Letšeng Mine has long been recognized for producing high-quality rough diamonds, frequently exceeding 100 carats. However, recent years have seen a decline in such discoveries. Nevertheless, this latest recovery has matched the previous year's total, during which the company also retrieved four diamonds in this category. This compares to six such diamonds in 2021 and 16 in 2020.

The decreasing number of special-size stones has impacted the company's revenue, resulting in a 28% year-on-year sales decline to $71.8 million in the first half of 2023. Gem Diamonds incurred a loss of $1 million, in contrast to a profit of $3.8 million during the same period in 2022.

Canada Unearths its Largest-Ever Yellow Diamond in Tiffany Crafts

Tiffany & Co. acquired a rough fancy vivid yellow diamond of over 71 total carats, yielding two yellow diamonds of over 15 and 20 carats each

diamond news network

Published on : 

27 Oct 2023, 12:20 am

Sourced in Canada, the diamond represents Tiffany’s relentless pursuit of the most exceptional gemstones that the world has to offer.

As the largest rough Fancy Vivid Yellow diamond ever discovered in Canada, weighing over 71 carats, the remarkable rough gem was sustainably sourced from the Ekati Mine in the Northwest Territories of the region. It is considered a miracle of nature and is extremely rare due to its highly saturated vivid yellow hue and showcased a near-perfect octahedral shape.

Tiffany & Co. artisans cut each in the highly coveted classic emerald shape. Victoria Wirth Reynolds, Chief Gemmologist, Tiffany & Co., said, “Our artisans handcrafted this rough stone into two gems of unparalleled vivid yellow colour and brilliance—transforming nature’s miracles through the exceptional skill of Tiffany craftsmanship.”

Gold mining spreads mercury to tropical birds, study says

Reuters | November 1, 2023 \

Hotspots for mercury contamination included Madre de Dios, Peru, and Ayapel, Colombia – centers of artisanal gold mining. (Stock Image)

Tropical birds, from kingfishers to wrens to warblers, are showing signs of mercury contamination as artisanal and small-scale gold mining operations reach deeper into jungles, new research finds.


Birds living within 7 km (4 miles) of such gold mining activity were found to have mercury concentrations over four times higher than those living at other sites across the tropics of Central and South America, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal Ecotoxicology.


“It’s a wake-up call for bird conservation internationally across the tropics,” said lead author Chris Sayers, a conservation biologist at the University of California Los Angeles.

Tropical bird biodiversity has been decliningin recent decades, but scientists are not fully sure why. “Based on the levels here, it’s reasonable to suggest that mercury may be playing a role,” Sayers said.

Over a 17-year period ending in 2023, dozens of scientists collected thousands of feather, blood and tissue samples from 322 bird species across nine countries in Central and South America and the West Indies, creating the world’s largest database to date on mercury concentrations in birds.

The research adds to a growing understanding of how mercury, which is used by gold miners to separate the precious metal from sediment, is impacting wildlife in the tropics.

Artisanal gold mining is often either carried out illegally in protected areas, or done informally outside reserves but without explicit government permission.

Earlier this year, Reuters reported for the first time that scientists were finding mammals, from titi monkeys to ocelots, showing signs of mercury contamination near a Peruvian gold mining hotspot.

Absorbing or ingesting mercury-contaminated water or food has been found to cause neurological illness, immune diseases and reproductive failure in humans and some birds.

Birds are the “canary in the gold mine,” Sayers said, as they are sensitive to mercury pollution and easily accessible, allowing scientists to take the temperature of overall ecosystem health.

The collected samples revealed some of the highest-ever recorded mercury concentrations in songbirds. Birds that ate meat or lived in aquatic habitats were also found to have the highest overall mercury levels.

Hotspots for mercury contamination included Madre de Dios, Peru, and Ayapel, Colombia – centres of artisanal gold mining.

Birds in central Belize also had high mercury concentrations, with scientists speculating it could be due to gaseous mercury emissions from local landfill incineration, or coal combustion in the surrounding region.

(By Gloria Dickie; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

 

How sunflowers see the sun

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS

 

VIDEO: 

SUNFLOWERS FAMOUSLY TURN THEIR FACES TO FOLLOW THE SUN AS IT CROSSES THE SKY. BUT HOW DO SUNFLOWERS “SEE” THE SUN TO FOLLOW IT? NEW WORK FROM PLANT BIOLOGISTS AT UC DAVIS, PUBLISHED OCT. 31 IN PLOS BIOLOGY, SHOWS THAT THEY USE A DIFFERENT, NOVEL MECHANISM FROM THAT PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT. 

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CREDIT: STACEY HARMER/UC DAVIS

Sunflowers famously turn their faces to follow the sun as it crosses the sky. But how do sunflowers “see” the sun to follow it? New work from plant biologists at the University of California, Davis, published Oct. 31 in PLOS Biology, shows that they use a different, novel mechanism from that previously thought. 

“This was a total surprise for us,” said Stacey Harmer, professor of plant biology at UC Davis and senior author on the paper. 

Most plants show phototropism – the ability to grow toward a light source. Plant scientists had assumed that sunflowers’ heliotropism, the ability to follow the sun, would be based on the same basic mechanism, which is governed by molecule called phototropin and responds to light at the blue end of the spectrum. 

Sunflowers swing their heads by growing a little more on the east side of the stem – pushing the head west – during the day and a little more on the west side at night, so the head swings back toward the east. Harmer’s lab at the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences has previously shown how sunflowers use their internal circadian clock to anticipate the sunrise, and to coordinate the opening of florets with the appearance of pollinating insects in the morning. 

In the new study, graduate student Christopher Brooks, postdoctoral researcher Hagatop Atamian and Harmer looked at which genes were switched on (transcribed) in sunflowers grown indoors in laboratory growth chambers, and in sunflowers growing in sunlight outdoors. 

Indoors, sunflowers grew straight toward the light, activating genes associated with phototropin. But the plants grown outdoors, swinging their heads with the sun, showed a completely different pattern of gene expression. There was no apparent difference in phototropin between one side of the stem and another. 

The researchers have not yet identified the genes involved in heliotropism. 

“We seem to have ruled out the phototropin pathway, but we did not find a clear smoking gun,” Harmer said. 

Blocking blue, ultraviolet, red or far-red light with shade boxes had no effect on the heliotropism response. This shows that there are likely multiple pathways, responding to different wavelengths of light, to achieve the same goal. Upcoming work will look at protein regulation in the plants. 

Sunflowers are quick learners. When plants grown in the lab were moved outdoors, they started tracking the sun on the first day, Harmer said. That behavior was accompanied by a burst of gene expression on the shaded side of the plant that did not recur on subsequent days. That suggests some kind of “rewiring” is going on, she said. 

Apart from revealing previously unknown pathways for light-sensing and growth in plants, the discovery has broad relevance, Harmer said. 

“Things that you define in a controlled environment like a growth chamber may not work out in the real world,” she said. 

Atamian is now an assistant professor at Chapman University. 

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JOURNAL

PLoS Biology

DOI

10.1371/journal.pbio.3002344 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Multiple light signaling pathways control solar tracking in sunflowers

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

31-Oct-2023