Potential risks of supply shortages for critical metals including rare-earth elements and yttrium (REY) have spurred great interest in commercial mining of deep-sea mineral resources. Deep-sea mud containing over 5,000 ppm total REY content was discovered in the western North Pacific Ocean near Minamitorishima Island, Japan, in 2013. This REY-rich mud has great potential as a rare-earth metal resource because of the enormous amount available and its advantageous mineralogical features. Here, we estimated the resource amount in REY-rich mud with Geographical Information System software and established a mineral processing procedure to greatly enhance its economic value. The resource amount was estimated to be 1.2 Mt of rare-earth oxide for the most promising area (105 km2 × 0–10 mbsf), which accounts for 62, 47, 32, and 56 years of annual global demand for Y, Eu, Tb, and Dy, respectively. Moreover, using a hydrocyclone separator enabled us to recover selectively biogenic calcium phosphate grains, which have high REY content (up to 22,000 ppm) and constitute the coarser domain in the grain-size distribution. The enormous resource amount and the effectiveness of the mineral processing are strong indicators that this new REY resource could be exploited in the near future.

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Dacitic to rhyolitic glass shards from 80 widespread tephras erupted during the past 5 Mys from calderas in Kyushu, and SW, central, and NE Japan were analyzed. Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was used to determine 10 major and 33 trace elements and A few tephras from SW Japan were identified as adakite and alkali rhyolite and were regarded to have originated from slab melt and mantle melt, respectively. The Pb isotope ratios of the tephras are comparable to those of the intermediate lavas in the source areas but are different from the basalts in these areas. The crustal assimilants for the intermediate lavas were largely from crustal melts and are represented by the rhyolitic tephras. A large heat source is required for forming large volumes of felsic crustal melts and is usually supplied by the mantle via basalt. Hydrous arc basalt formed by cold slab subduction is voluminous, and its heat transfer with high water content may have melted crustal rocks leading to effective felsic magma production. Coincidence of basalt and felsic magma activities shown by this study suggests caldera-forming eruptions are ultimately the effect of a mantle-driven cause.