Tag Archives: forge

Earth

USA: Mining and Minerals Are Critical To National Sovereignty

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio at President Trump’s Roundtable on American Mining

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you, Mr. President.  Thank you for coming to the State Department.  We like this room a lot, too, and obviously don’t look back; there’s a painting up here.  Just don’t – (laughter) – uh-oh. 

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  (Inaudible.)  That’s a good one.  (Laughter.)  I’m taking it with me. 

SECRETARY RUBIO:  That – I shouldn’t have said anything.  But anyway, Mr. President, thank you for being here.  Thank you for your leadership on this topic.  It’s a challenge we face in this domain that actually goes to the very survival of the country, and thank you for giving it a priority in your presidency.  This has been going on for 25 years.  We’ve been walking away from the importance of this, and now we’re trying to make up for 25 or 30 years of mistakes under your presidency.  So, we appreciate your presidency valuing this when other presidents did not.

The group of people that are here today represent the whole-of-nation effort that’s involved in this.  It’s – because at the core of this is our industrial strength, but also our national sovereignty – that we never depend on other countries for things we need to prosper and to defend ourselves as a people.  And so, you’ll see here today, as you’ve already pointed out, we have leaders not just from government but from universities, from private industry, from students who are going to be the future of this industry. 

I wanted to briefly – very briefly – touch on what the State Department’s done.  Earlier this year we had a Critical Minerals Ministerial.  We brought in countries from all over the world to – and announced the creation of something called FORGE, which is an international partnership chaired by us in the United States to leverage public finance and coordinate diplomatic support to secure these supply chains around the world.  At that meeting, we signed 11 new critical minerals agreements with countries, adding to the ones that already existed.  Today, under your administration, we’ve already signed 27 critical mineral agreements with other countries.

Pax Silica

We also, under the leadership of someone who needs to be recognized, our Under Secretary Jacob Helberg – I don’t know if Jacob is here, but Jacob has been phenomenal.  He came up with something called Pax Silica, and it’s an initiative that leads our efforts to partner with the private sector and invest in mining and refining and in processing as well as the end-use applications of that. 

There’s still a lot of work left to do, but we at the State Department are willing to utilize our unmatched global presence, our presence all over the world, to ensure that we’re working on this.  And we’re committed to working with industry, with universities, with all the elements of our national power to bring this about.  And so, thank you, Mr. President, for prioritizing this, and I think we all look forward to working not just nationally but with our allies around the world to ensure that we have supply chains that are diversified and reliable and no country can ever hold this over our head and threaten us in the future.  Thank you.

Supplemental- What About Canada?

Canada signs over 20 critical mineral deals but faces $12-billion U.S. challenge to turn diplomacy into mines

Vintage

Protecting the body in Combat- European Bronze Style

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This monograph provides for the first time a combined overview of all classes of metal body armour from the European Bronze Age in a holistic perspective, combining discussion of both traditional typo-chronologies and aspects of manufacture and use.

The earliest metal body armour recovered comes from Dendra, Greece, and dates to the first half of the 15th century BC.

However, the majority of metal body armour, including helmets, cuirasses and greaves, derives from the European Late Bronze Age, c. 1200–950 BC. This armour has been found from Iberia in the west to Cyprus in the east, and from Sicily in the south to Denmark in the north, as well as in the Near East. It thus derives from a wide geographical study area. Nevertheless, only around 30 cuirasses, 75 greaves and 120 helmets have so far been recovered.

The development, manufacture and use of this metal body armour across Europe remains unclear, even after more than a century of research. Earlier studies were largely concerned with typo-chronological aspects of this armour, whilst topics such as manufacturing techniques, efficacy and technological observations were rarely addressed.

Page 29 from the full volume available below. Click on the hypertext at the end of this post for the PDF.

This volume therefore brings together both traditional artefact and metallurgical studies, as well as reconstructions of manufacturing techniques, technological developments and innovations and use-wear analysis. The monograph also provides much-needed detail concerning material characterisation, in the form of alloy composition and microstructure analysis of a significant sample of the original finds.

Combining the results of this with the study of the manufacturing techniques and use-wear traces, a better understanding of how this armour was both produced and used is achieved. I have documented, studied and analysed all accessible helmets, greaves and cuirasses in eastern Europe as well as a number of examples from western Europe, significantly increasing the quantity of body armour studied and analysed in detail. The publication contains the whole spectrum of known body armour currently recovered, as well as including ‘new’ finds from auctions or private collections, which have previously been overlooked.

The present volume offers a holistic artefact study of European Bronze Age body armour, its manufacture and usage. It serves as a basis for further experimental studies into the production and utility of bronze helmets, cuirasses and greaves, which will deliver further important insights in … View full abstract For the Silo, Marianne Modlinger.