Metric tons oftantalum minedYear(^01991)
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Democratic Republic
of the Congo (DRC)
Africa, excluding
DRC
Adapted from United States Geological Survey (USGS) Minerals Yearbook annual data. 1990–2009.
© Lucas Oleniuk/Zuma Press/Corbis
b. International sources of tantalum, 1990–2009.
a. Coltan, a form of tantalum mined from the Democratic Republic
of the Congo’s Masisi Territory.
Soil Problems and Conservation 317
Coping with “Conflict Minerals”
CASE STUDY
How do you think poverty levels affect a
nation’s potential to exploit conflict minerals? How might the
war in the DRC have been different if the nation lacked such
minerals?
Think Critically
✓✓THE PLANNER
Tantalum is a dark-gray, very hard metal that plays an
important part in our high-tech society (Figure a).
Because of its extreme abilities to resist heat and
corrosion and conduct electricity, tantalum is prized
as the source material of electronic capacitors. It is
found in cell phones, computer circuits, digital cameras,
gaming hardware, many other electronic gadgets, and
even in weapon systems. Tantalum has been mined
primarily in Australia (see Figure b), but its presence
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) made it
a controversial mineral. In the DRC tantalum is mined
in a form known as “coltan,” an ore containing both
tantalite—an oxide of tantalum—and a mineral known
as columbite. During the recent devastating war in the
DRC, which began in 1998 and included conflicts among
nine African nations resulting in the deaths of millions,
various militias took over the mining and selling of
coltan and other “blood” minerals, including diamonds.
These military groups forced DRC residents into unsafe
labor and created environmental havoc, primarily by
harvesting native species—most notably gorillas—for
bushmeat. The sale of coltan supported the conflict.
Although peace accords were negotiated in 2003,
fighting continues in the eastern DRC, and coltan remains
a black-market commodity. The prized ore is also present
in the border region of Venezuela and Colombia, where
it has again triggered illegal activity, luring in drug
smugglers and paramilitary groups.
The developed world’s dependence
on tantalum creates dilemmas for
manufacturers of high-tech goods: How
do they avoid conflict sources of this
metal? And how do consumers know that
the manufacturers are avoiding these
sources? In 2010 the U.S. Congress
passed legislation as part of the
Dodd-Frank Act to prevent electronics
manufacturers from supporting wars
by purchasing conflict minerals such as
coltan from the DRC and neighboring
countries. Unfortunately, legal mining
operations are often near the illicit
ones controlled by militia groups. U.S.
researchers are pursuing laser-induced breakdown
spectroscopy (LIBS) technology that can generate
specific geochemical “fingerprints” for distinct mineral
samples. The LIBS technique offers promise for
manufacturers and consumers hoping to avoid conflict
sources of minerals such as coltan.