Federally funded project will look for rare earth elements in seaweed
The Southeast Alaska project will launch in March with collection and analysis of various types of seaweed around the southern end of Prince of Wales Island. The project is trying to determine whether significant amounts of rare earth elements are being absorbed by that seaweed from Bokan Mountain, which is known to contain several of those minerals.
Beyond that, the project will examine the possibilities for cultivating enough seaweed to make it worthwhile to extract those absorbed critical elements, said the project’s lead researcher, UAF’s Schery Umanzor.