REE resources potential in Greenland and the availability evaluation in favor of China

Located in the North Pole, Greenland is the world's largest island. After about four billion years of geological evolution, Greenland has been extremely rich in mineral resources, especially with heavy rare earth elements as the characteristics of the rare earth mineral resources. The previous researchers mainly concentrated their attention on ferrous metal and polymetallic mineral resource, with very insufficient attention paid to the rare earth metal resource. In order to protect the limited rare earth resources and provide basic information for Chinese enterprises' and geological exploration organizations' implementation of "going out" policy in Greenland with the purpose of seeking for potential REE resources, the authors, through the collection of literature and online information, found that the rare earth mineral deposits are mainly concentrated in southwest, south, east, and west of Greenland, and the types of these resources include mainly a carbonate rocks type, a alkaline rocks type, a paleo-placer type, and a possible IOCG type. The REE potential of Greenland is great. The four potential regions were determined by analysis of geological data from Greenland, which include two classⅠprospect, one class Ⅱ prospect and and one class Ⅲ prospect. The next step should focus on the potential area of southern and southwest Greenland two classⅠprospects, followed by the work in the middle east class Ⅱ prospect and the middle west class Ⅲ prospect. From various aspects of Greenland's rare earth mineral resources utilization, the authors consider that the REE deposits in Greenland deserve Chinese enterprises' much attention.