Excerpt from Minerals of California

Largely because of these factors, the law of diminishing returns seems not yet to have taken any real toll from California's mineral production. In this connection it should suffice to point to three notable developments in the mineral economy of the State that have transpired very largely since just the last edition of Minerals of California (bull. 173, 1) The bastnaesite deposit at Mountain Pass had been discovered a few years previously, development was underway, but returns at that time were somewhat disappointing. It took the sub sequent discovery of practical methods for refining the rare earths and producing relatively pure europium oxide, as well as the discovery of the application of this rare earth to color television, to make the Moun tain Pass deposit the bonanza that it is fast becoming. 2) In 1956, pro duction of asbestos in California received only the barest mention in the us. Bureau of Mines Minerals Yearbook. In 1966 it will be reported as a multimillion dollar industry, with plans for expansion and enor mous reserves of ore. This has come about partly through recognition that the curious mountain leather of the Coalinga area was not tremolite, after'all, but a true chrysotile fibre in an unusual habit; partly through technological success in learning how to process this material; and partly through the economic opportunities conferred by growth of population. 3) In 1956 geothermal steam was a commercial oddity reported only from Italy and beginning to be talked about in New Zealand. Today, the successful harnessing of geothermal energy in the last four years toproduce electric power at The Geysers represents a first in this field in terms of the entire North American continent. And developments in the Niland area of the Imperial Valley presage the possibility of producing not only power, but potash!

How fortunate can we be? Has California not been already more than sufficiently favored? Yet. There is more to this success story A mineral is a mineral; but for a mineral to be useful, man must enter on the scene. California has attracted more mineralogists (whether measured in the somewhat restricted scientific terms of numbers of Fellows of the Mineralogical Society of America, or in the broader and more popular terms of number of members of the Federated Min eral Societies) than has any other state. Moreover, California has attracted more top flight scientists in all fields than most other states. The juxtaposition (if one may put it that way) of a wide variety of minerals in a diversity of geologic settings, and of numbers of imagina tive scientists in general and mineralogists in particular, virtually guarantees that there will be more and perhaps bigger new discoveries, both of minerals and of useful application for minerals, than any we have yet Seen.

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