[Rockhounds] Fool's Gold Might Actually Become Valuable

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Pyrite, the yellow metal known as fool’s gold, has another trick up its
sleeve: it can contain lithium, a crucial element in the world’s quest for
greener energy, according to a team of researchers that studied rock
deposits in the eastern United States.

The researchers examined 15 rock samples that formed during the
middle-Devonian, about 390 million years ago, in the U.S.’s Appalachian
Basin. They found lithium (Li on the Periodic Table) in pyrite minerals in
the shale, indicating that fool’s gold could contain an element touted for
kicking off a new ‘gold rush.
<https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/10/10/lithium-gold-rush-why-important/8170196001/>’
The team’s research was announced at the European Geosciences Union General
Assembly 2024, and their paper is currently hosted on the assembly website
<https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU24/EGU24-369.html>.

“Some Li may be sequestered in pyrite in organic-rich shales,” the study
authors wrote. “As pyrite is a common mineral in the Appalachian Basin,
this has implications for exploiting shale pyrite in the Devonian sequence
if the Li proves economically extractable.”

Lithium is an in-demand metal because of its use in battery technologies,
and it is becoming increasingly coveted as electric vehicle production
ramps up worldwide. Lithium batteries power everything from cars
<https://gizmodo.com/exxonmobil-lithium-mining-arkansas-electric-vehicles-1850465571>
 to computers
<https://gizmodo.com/unplug-your-laptop-now-it-will-stay-plugged-in-forever-1851320725>,
and, like the element cobalt
<https://gizmodo.com/cobalt-is-the-new-oil-1848105024>, it is increasingly
in sought for general “green” battery tech
<https://gizmodo.com/the-dirty-truth-about-green-batteries-1833922990>.

But lithium batteries have downsides, like an extraction process with
environmental, social, and human rights impacts
<https://gizmodo.com/the-dirty-truth-about-green-batteries-1833922990>, and
reactivity that makes them prone to catching fire
<https://gizmodo.com/e-bike-batteries-trigger-deadly-nyc-fire-1850556370>.

Pyrite has fooled us before; in 2021, a team of researchers found that fool’s
gold can, in fact, contain real gold
<https://gizmodo.com/fools-gold-is-hiding-invisible-real-gold-scientists-fi-1847185187>.
But the minerals have some clear differences: pyrite is magnetic, and gold
is not. Pyrite often has some remarkable geometry to it, while gold looks
more like lustrous, smooth chunks. But the recent team’s research indicates
that pyrite could also demarcate a different kind of precious metal.
Shailee Bhattacharya, a sedimentary geochemist at West Virginia University
and co-author of the new study, said in an EGU release
<https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1041091> that finding lithium in
pyrite is “unheard of,” though it remains an open question “how lithium and
pyrite could be associated with one another.”

https://gizmodo.com/fools-gold-pyrite-contains-lithium-green-energy-1851410225