The global rare earths industry has transformed over the last three decades. In the 1990s, the U.S. was still a major producer, anchored by the Mountain Pass mine in California. However, after a wastewater-related legal action in 1997 involving the mine, U.S. output collapsed, creating space for China to scale rapidly. This visualization tracks those shifts in mine production from 1994 to 2024. The data comes from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). China increased REO output from around 31,000 metric tons in 1994 to 270,000 metric tons in 2024. During the period, Chinese suppliers ... (full story)