
A recently published study in the US has revealed that under the Salton Sea in southern California hides an "impressive" amount of lithium, which has surprised scientists.
The state's largest lake sits atop a deposit of lithium, something scientists already knew, but what they didn't know was the amount of the chemical.
The Department of Energy funded a study that began probing the Salton Sea to try to analyze exactly how much lithium lay beneath its body, and it was found to contain 18 million tons of lithium, dubbed 'white gold' because of its value and appearance his.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has called the Salton Sea the "Saudi Arabia of lithium mining," and the study's findings certainly prove why.
18 million tons of lithium would be enough to produce more than 382 million electric vehicle batteries, making the California-based deposit the largest in the world.
A metric ton of lithium is worth about $29,000, so given that figure, the Salton Sea could be hiding $540 billion worth of goods.
One of the study's 22 authors, Michael McKibben, a professor of geochemistry at the University of California, Riverside, said of the findings: "This is one of the largest lithium deposits in the world and could make the United States completely on its own. -sufficient in lithium and stop importing it from China".
Sammy Roth, a climate columnist for the Los Angeles Times, told the KJZZ radio show: “It's been known for a long time that there is a pile of lithium deep beneath the southern edge of the Salton Sea. This new federal government report is truly impressive. They found that there is potentially enough lithium down there to power the batteries for 382 million electric vehicles, more vehicles than are currently on the road in the United States.”