1. Rhodium. Rhodium is a rare, silvery-white metal that belongs to the platinum group of elements.
Rhodium Is Earth's Rarest and Most Expensive Precious Metal.
One of the most valued precious metals is rhodium. Rhodium prices are, in fact, far greater than gold prices. Due to its rarity, rhodium is only available in a fraction of the amount of gold. The large price disparity between gold and rhodium is due to the fact that gold mines are far more numerous than rhodium mines.
The most profitable metals to mine and/or process depend largely on market conditions and the cost of production. Currently, some of the most profitable metals to mine and/or process are gold, copper, aluminum, iron ore, palladium, and platinum.
Rubies are considered to be the most expensive gemstones in the world. They get their alluring red color from the presence of chromium. The largest supply of this mineral was harvested in Burma, which is known as the Mecca for rubies.
The rarest stable metal is tantalum. The rarest metal on earth is actually francium, but because this unstable element has a half life of a mere 22 minutes, it has no practical use.
Red beryl is estimated to be worth 1,000 times more than gold and is so rare that one red beryl crystal is found for every 150,000 diamonds.
Rhenium, ruthenium, rhodium, iridium, osmium, gold, palladium and silver are the order this comes in. The most valuable of all precious metals is rhodium.
Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Mine is the largest artificially made excavation in the world, and is visible to the naked eye from an orbiting space shuttle. Employing some 2,000 workers, 450,000 short tons (400,000 long tons; 410,000 t) of material are removed from the mine daily.
The gold in the Klondike is known as orogenic gold. The word “orogenic” refers to a mountain-building event. Orogenic gold is gold that formed during a mountain-building event. Mountain-building events generate large amounts of heat and pressure, so oftentimes metamorphism will accompany this process.
Platinum is 30 times more rare than gold. If all the platinum ever mined were melted and poured into an Olympic-sized pool, the platinum would barely reach your ankles.
Palladium rarity
In recent years, there has been a global deficit of palladium due to the tightening of environmental policies regarding the auto industry, which stipulates the enforcement of catalytic converters. The graph above, sourced from Statista.com, shows the worldwide supply of palladium from 2013-2022.
Astatine is a chemical element with the symbol At and atomic number 85. It is the rarest naturally occurring element in the Earth's crust, occurring only as the decay product of various heavier elements. All of astatine's isotopes are short-lived; the most stable is astatine-210, with a half-life of 8.1 hours.
According to estimates, the total worldwide reserves of rare earths amount to approximately 130 million metric tons. Most of these reserves are located within China, estimated at some 44 million metric tons. After China, the major rare earth countries based on reserve volume are Vietnam, Brazil, and Russia.
Other studies have shown that rhodium, gold, platinum, and tellurium are the rarest elements in terms of the proportion of the earth's crust and the importance of human society.
Officially known as the Fimiston open pit mine, the Super Pit gold mine in Western Australia is the country's largest mine in terms of scale, covering 3.5km by 1.5km on the surface, and currently undergoing expansion work to extend to a depth of 700m.
The destination: Mount Isa, the deepest mine in Australia, 5,187 kilometers (3,223 miles) away. The trip involved a four-hour hop across the continent to Brisbane, an overnight stay, followed by a two-and-a-half hour flight deep into Queensland, Australia's great north west.
Australia produces 19 useful minerals in significant amounts, from over 350 operating mines.
Painite : Not just the rarest gemstone, but also the rarest mineral on earth, Painite holds the Guinness World Record for it. After its discovery in the year 1951, there existed only 2 specimens of Painite for the next many decades.
In 1981, the World Jewellery Confederation (CIBJO) declared ammolite a new organic gem. Occurring in limited deposits in the Rocky Mountains, this gem material is much rarer than diamond. Ammolite is made of the aragonite shells of marine mollusks more than 65 million years old, which display bright, iridescent colors.
The average concentration of gold in Earth's crust is 'very, very low,' at 4 parts per billion. In its elemental form, gold is significantly rarer than diamonds.
Black spinel gemstone is very rare and not well known. It comes in a wide range of colors, but the rarest of them all is the black one.