The rise of nanometers - Chapter 762 Matthew Effect

Yellowstone volcano, inside the exclusion zone.

In the edge area of ​​the isolation zone, in the area that was once covered by the magma tide, there are many robots active.

Although the current isolation zone of the Yellowstone volcano still maintains a radius of 500 kilometers, in fact the eruption area of ​​the Yellowstone volcano has been suppressed within a radius of 100 kilometers.

The remaining areas, if they are in the Rocky Mountains with terrain higher than the Yellowstone volcano, will generally not be affected by the magma tide.

About 480 kilometers southwest of the Yellowstone volcano, there is a city that was more than half swallowed by magma.

Of course, this is an abandoned city.

Boise, once the capital of Idaho, was part of the Snake River Valley plain, and the upper reaches were the core area of ​​the Yellowstone volcano, so it was naturally inevitable.

There is still a lot of volcanic ash remaining on the surface of the abandoned city, and there is a smell of sulfur in the air.

Standing on the tallest building in the city, you can see that the valley plain on the south side is covered with endless black, which is the magma plain formed after the magma cools and solidifies.

Unfortunately, Boise’s airport was also submerged in magma, and now a new temporary airport can only be built on the mountain northwest of the city.

The reason why people come here is not because they need to restore the ecology, but because they want to mine these magma rocks.

Although the eruption of the Yellowstone volcano brought a huge ecological disaster, this huge crisis also contained huge opportunities.

The abandoned urban area of ​​Boise was transformed into a huge mineral extraction center.

Various mining vehicles and transport vehicles excavate large amounts of magma rock, which are then coarsely crushed and initially selected before being sent to various professional refining plants.

The main component of the magma rock here is silicate magma rock, with an alumina content between 47.3 and 50.6%, which is a typical basic magma.

In addition, there are ferric oxide, iron oxide, magnesium oxide, calcium oxide, and sodium oxide, which also account for a very high proportion. These are components that are abundant in magmatic rocks.

The magma rocks here also contain 4.26% of heavy metals, non-ferrous metals, rare metals and radioactive elements.

This 4.62% is the essence of the Yellowstone volcanic magma rock, not to mention gold, silver, copper, and some metal elements needed by industry.

You know, the magma erupted by the Yellowstone volcano this time covered a total area of ​​527,000 square kilometers, which is larger than the total area of ​​Montana (380,000 square kilometers).

In such a huge area, the average thickness of the magma rock reaches about 13.5 meters.

For example, the Snake River Valley, where Boise is located, has a magma rock coverage thickness of about 31.7 meters.

The basic terrain of a large part of the area within a radius of 700 kilometers has changed.

Although so much magma has brought devastating disasters, it has also brought abundant heavy elements in the mantle.

Anyway, the ecology here has been destroyed, so there is no need to worry too much about the ecology when mining minerals on a large scale here.

At least during the geologically active period of the Yellowstone volcano, there was definitely no way to artificially repair it within a radius of 500 kilometers. It could only rely on nature to repair itself bit by bit.

In the heavy metal refining factory, carts of crude ore that have undergone initial selection are sent to the production line.

Midland, who has been working here for almost a year and a half, although he is used to the scene in front of him, is still a little disappointed with the speed of technological progress in the Federation.

He used to work at the Carnegie Steel Group and had seen various smelting technologies, but this was the first time he saw efficient and low-cost mining and smelting like the Federation.

No wonder the United States has failed miserably in the mineral industry. This mining and smelting technology can smooth the gap in mineral abundance.

Just like the refining production line in front of us, even gold, silver, copper, lead, tungsten and the like with relatively small contents can be quickly extracted.

In the past, private mineral smelting companies had to face not only technical problems, but also cost, ecological, market and other troubles.

Using old-fashioned techniques to extract poor minerals, even precious metal minerals, may result in a loss, let alone base metals.

This is also the fundamental reason why mineral mining companies such as Rio Tinto were able to monopolize the market.

Because there is a big difference in cost between using rich ore and using poor ore, provided there is no difference in smelting technology. Rich ore can make the cost of smelting even lower.

It was not until the emergence of the new smelting technology of the Suiren system that this situation was broken.

Midland had always been very curious about the Suirin system’s technology, and only learned the details after being assigned to the Boise Mining Group.

With cheap mineral smelting technology and cheap energy, no wonder the federal industrial strength will become stronger and stronger.

Supervisor Du Congzhi walked into the control room and asked: “Midland, how much gallium, iridium and thallium are there now?”

“Let me take a look!” Midland quickly entered the command, and the reserve amounts of the three metals popped up on the display panel.

He raised his head and reported the report: “There are 386 kilograms of gallium gold, 4.62 kilograms of iridium gold, and 24.3 kilograms of thallium gold.”

“That’s enough gallium and thallium. I need 10 kilograms of iridium.” Du Congzhi frowned, then picked up the phone and called the manager of another mining company.

Midland is no stranger to such scenes.

The federal demand for precious metals, heavy metals, and rare elements is increasing year by year. Although various materials research institutes are actively looking for materials that can replace rare elements, unfortunately not all applied materials can be replaced with large amounts of elements.

For example, the increasing number of nuclear fusion power stations now has many spare parts, all of which require the use of rare elements and are difficult to replace.

Federal mining of magmatic rocks from the Yellowstone volcano is just the tip of the iceberg.

On the seafloor, the moon, the asteroid belt, and now Venus, which is in full swing, the Federation is increasing resource exploration and preparing more resources for future development.

Midland used to have a bit of blind optimism about the speed of human expansion of the universe.

Now that I have actually participated in it, I understand how difficult it is.

The Federation now has five states (including Antarctica), plus the Pacific, Arctic and Southern Oceans, as well as a large part of the Ceylon Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

In addition, there is a moon that is already in the development stage, and Mars, Venus and the asteroid belt are being explored.

But even in such a huge area, there is still a shortage of some rare element minerals.

If the Federation had not invested a lot of energy in the field of materials research and development in recent years, the current shortage of rare elements would be even more severe.

After all, there is indeed a huge difference between the small-scale aerospace exploration in the past and the real exploration of the universe.

Just a space elevator project, in the old days, it is estimated that even if the United States was sold, it would not be able to afford such a huge project. Funds, materials, and technology were all problems.

In the post-technological era, the Matthew Effect in the region is actually gradually expanding, and it is expanding at a speed that is difficult to catch up.

Now even if the Federation discloses all the technology of the space elevator, it will be a problem for small forces to find talents who can understand it, let alone copy it.

This differentiation is inevitable. The strong will become stronger and stronger, and the weak will be able to maintain the current situation, or the federation will look down on them.

This was also the group of people from Maung An who understood the future of the times and made the right choice with Hongsawady.

Thank you for your support (ω｀)