Galileo Regio Rare Earths

Galileo Regio is the largest stretch of ancient dark terrain on Ganymede, a crust of dusty, rock-rich ice far older than the bright grooved plains around it. Beneath a thin lag of dark material, a rock-rich layer between 10 and 240 metres deep is enriched in rare earths.

Pickaxe Survey Drones flew a 1,200-square-kilometre magnetometry grid over the area in 2185, and Seismic Survey Lead Sunniva Okafor followed with the Thumper Seismic Mapper to trace the rock-rich layer in three dimensions. Shallow core and pit samples average 1,200 g/t neodymium, 140 g/t dysprosium and 40 g/t scandium.

The modelled resource is 150 million tonnes, close to the Ganymede Magnetics Foundry's magnet plant, which has already said it will bid. The area is listed as auction lot 12 and has no registered owner yet. The winning bidder receives the full survey package, including seismic sections and every assay certificate.

Ganymede's gravity is gentle and its dark terrain is cold and stable, which makes open-pit mining far simpler than on Io. The survey package includes 38 shallow cores, 900 Spectra Assay Lance readings and a full set of seismic sections.