WORLD MONUMENT

Genprex Collaborators to Present Positive Preclinical Data on the Use of Reqorsa(R) Gene Therapy for the Treatment of Lung Cancer at the 2025 AACR-NCI-EROTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics

Dragonfly Energy to be Awarded Nevada Tech Hub Funding to Advance Battery Manufacturing and Workforce Development

October 2, 2025

Nevada Tech Hub selects Dragonfly Energy for first-round funding, with contract finalization in progress

Funding to support manufacturing upgrades that are expected to improve efficiency and reduce costs

Project to expand Nevada’s skilled battery workforce through new training and hiring initiatives

https://dragonflyenergy.com/dragonfly-energy-to-be-awarded-nevada-tech-hub-funding-to-advance-battery-manufacturing-and-workforce-development/

4 133,05 +20.51 +0.50%

Gold prices notched another all-time high on Monday, crossing the $4,100-an-ounce mark for the first time, as renewed US-China trade tensions sent investors flocking to safe-haven assets.

Spot gold rose as much as 2% to $4,103.05 per ounce, a sizeable rebound from Friday’s pullback. Meanwhile, US gold futures jumped by nearly 2.9% to a high of $4,124.30 per ounce in New York.

The Fens Field is a mineral deposit, approximately 5 km2, located at Ulefoss in the municipality of Nome in Telemark.

In a smaller area, 1.5 km2, Europe's largest deposit of rare earths has been discovered, estimated at 8.8 million tonnes.

The mining deposits around Ulefoss that are of economic and mining interest originate from the Fen volcano, which is a 580 million year old limestone volcano that solidified gradually with activity until 540 million years ago. The volcano was one of several that arose when Baltica and adjacent continents were broken up. Only a cross-section of a supply channel to the volcano is visible, most of the structures have been eroded away. The field extends approximately cylindrically downwards, and crystallization took place approx. 2-3 kilometres below the surface. Through explosive ascent of magmatic limestones (carbonatites), old gneiss in higher layers was transformed into a rock group that the Norwegian geologist W. C. Brøgger called fenite after the area. In total, the "fenitization" took place by various layers of lava from the Earth's mantle at a depth of 100 km, penetrating upwards and forming many metamorphic rocks. At the end of the volcanic period, water entered the carbonatites and oxidized the iron content to red hematite.

The field contains, among other things, deep and gangue rocks such as carbonatites, silicate carbonatites and nepheline pyroxenes. Søvitt is named after the farm Søve, melteigitte after Melteig, whipetoite after Vipeto and damtjernite after Damtjern. Damtjernite has a structure with large flakes of mica.

In the period from about 1650 to 1927, iron-bearing dolomite was mined and in a period from 1953 to 1963, søveite and dolomite were mined in the Søve mines for the production of niobium.

The discovery in 1652 of iron ore on Fen led to the establishment of Holden Iron Works (Ulefos Iron Works) in 1657. The ironworks in Fossum, Moss and Bolvig also received ore from mines here. The mines were operated until 1881 and operations were only resumed in 1898, the final cessation of operations of the iron mines in the Fens field was in 1927.

During the First World War, there was a shortage of minerals and the Fens field was surveyed. Geologist Waldemar Christofer Brøgger carried out the survey in 1921 and already understood then that igneous limestone was a geological opportunity for finding rare rocks, and in the Fens field he found a number of unknown rocks. During the Second World War, there was again great demand and the German occupation forces began sampling niobium for military purposes. Niobium was to be used in the V1 and V2 rockets that the Germans used over England.

In 1953, Norsk Bergverk started operations and mined niobium in the Søve mines and in 1958 production of ferroniobium began. Ferroniob was made in a metallurgical process where an alloy of iron (40%) and niobium (60%) was produced, during the production it was waste, a radioactive slag. Production was stopped in 1965 but the slag heaps are still there in 2024. In 2020, the Norwegian Nuclear Decommissioning (NND) was commissioned by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries (NFD) to take responsibility for the cleanup in the Søve mines.

There were several periods in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s with systematic mapping of rare earths, but this did not lead to new mining. In the early 2000s, the focus was on the Fens field occurrence of the radioactive element thorium. In 2008, the government presented the report “Thorium as an energy source – opportunities for Norway”. However, there was no political will to develop expertise in nuclear power and thorium.

Test drilling was carried out between 2011 and 2014, and the results showed large amounts of rare earths and relatively little thorium. In 2018, the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU) was granted funding to further map the occurrence of rare earths in the Fens field down to 1,000 meters. The report published in 2019 states that the area may contain Europe’s largest occurrence of rare earths.

Rare earths are important in the green transition. They are needed in a number of high-tech equipment and are included in almost all technical applications that surround us.

Since China has almost a monopoly on rare earths, it is important for Norway and Europe to have a different approach to this for our defense policy and industrial policy. Rare earths are used in everything from torpedoes, vehicles, fighter jets, missiles to radar and communication equipment. With rare earths from the Fens field, Norway can produce this itself, both for us and for our NATO allies.