America has $2.3 trillion in critical minerals sitting in abandoned mines.
We know where every site is.
MotherLode CMI delivers per-site critical minerals intelligence across every documented extraction site in the mining-active United States. Hours, not months. Every site, not a sample.
The data exists. It has never been integrated.
Historical mining operations from 1850 through the late 20th century assayed only the primary commodity. Gold, copper, silver, lead. Critical minerals — rare earth elements, cobalt, lithium, gallium, germanium, antimony, tellurium — were discarded with the tailings or never measured at all. Modern surveys cover roughly five percent of the country.
A seasoned mining expert working by hand can research a single site in 6 to 8 months, with access to less than half the relevant data, with zero automated cross-referencing. The US is 100% import-reliant on 12 critical minerals. China controls processing for most of them. The domestic supply is not missing. It is not identified.
Four things no other platform can tell you.
Know what a site actually holds.
Historical mining operations assayed only the primary commodity. Critical minerals — rare earth elements, cobalt, antimony, tellurium, lithium — were discarded with the tailings. MotherLode CMI surfaces what was missed, per site, with confidence intervals.
Know the claim status before you move.
Active claims, open BLM land, protected areas, patented ground, private surface rights. Every site reflects current standing, not a snapshot from five years ago.
Know the regulatory path before you commit.
Environmental sensitivity, mercury risk, permit requirements, tribal adjacency, water rights — mapped against the specific site, not generic guidance.
Know the economics before you apply.
Estimated recovery cost, commodity mix, modern processing applicability, and current market value — built into every site analysis. Not projections. Structured estimates with sourced assumptions.
Per-site analysis. Not averages. Not regions. Sites.
Every documented mineral extraction site in the mining-active United States — scored, ranked, and ready for evaluation. Each site carries bycatch predictions with confidence intervals for federally designated critical minerals, sourced from an integrated data corpus no single agency or operator has assembled before.
The mine above ground.
The highest-margin category in domestic critical minerals recovery is not the mine. It is the tailings pile. Surface-accessible, no new drill permits, modern processing methods capable of recovering what 19th-century technology discarded entirely. MotherLode CMI scores tailings separately from the mine — with recovery economics, contamination status, and commodity mix estimated per pile.
Verified claims. Real assays. AABOS AI-priced.
A verified claim marketplace where every listing carries a MotherLode Score and is cross-referenced against the asking price. Scam patterns flagged. Chain-of-custody documentation required for verified listings. The first place where buyers and sellers of mining claims can see what a site is actually worth before the transaction closes.
The intelligence layer the funded cohort cannot build fast enough.
The DOE national labs are building AABOS AI-powered critical minerals discovery from scratch. MotherLode CMI already has 300,000 scored sites and a working data flywheel. The platform provides per-site intelligence on unconventional feedstocks — mine tailings, legacy waste streams, historically underassayed sites — formatted for direct program-manager submission.
The mine already processed.
The value still in the pile.
19th-century gold processing recovered 40 to 60 percent of what was in the ore. Modern methods recover 90 to 97 percent. The difference sits in tailings piles across the American West — surface-accessible, no new drill permits, already sitting on land you can evaluate today.
MotherLode CMI scores tailings separately from the mine itself. Recovery economics, contamination crosscheck, commodity mix, and modern processing pathway — per pile.
What every tailings report includes
Surface-accessible. No new drill permits required.
Cross-referenced against EPA contamination status.
Critical minerals bycatch estimated per pile.
Modern processing pathway recommended per ore type.
Recovery economics modeled at current commodity prices.
Mercury and heavy-metal risk scored per site era and location.
Comparable tailings rework outcomes from documented analog sites.
Permit pathway summary — what approvals are required before processing begins.
The federal build-out is active. The intelligence layer is here.
U.S. critical minerals policy is now actively funding recovery from unconventional feedstocks — mine tailings, legacy waste streams, historically underassayed sites. Over $570 million in active funding opportunities across DOE and DOI as of Q2 2026. MotherLode CMI is the upstream intelligence layer for that build-out.
Active federal programs we align with
DOE Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation
DOE $500M critical minerals processing NOFO (March 2026)
DOE $69M Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator (April 2026)
DPA Title III critical-minerals awards
DOI Order 3436 domestic supply build-out
ARPA-E adjacent funding mechanisms
Inquiries from federal program managers, demonstration-facility awardees, and state geological survey coordinators: contact the team directly.
Where to start, by who you are.
Federal program managers
DOE, DOD, ARPA-E, state critical-minerals commissions. Defensible per-site intelligence, grant-ready reports, and a compliance posture built for program-manager scrutiny.
Compliance and methodology →Mining operators with documented supply
Active mines, tailings reprocessors, industrial waste-stream operators. Request consideration for the vetted Sourcing Network.
Operator intake →Refiners and downstream processors
Regional, specialty, and international refiners building feedstock pipelines under provenance documentation.
Sourcing Network →Investors and capital partners
Patent-protected platform, federal-aligned positioning, compounding data moat. Reach the team directly.
Contact the team →Built with domain authority.
Douglas Chrisey, Ph.D.
Chief Science Officer
Professor of Physics and Engineering Physics at Tulane University. Former Head of the Laser Processing Section at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Seventeen years at NRL. Former Deputy Director at the North Dakota State University Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering. Full Professor of Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Corey Strange
Founder, Lucid Tech LLC
20-year enterprise technology veteran. Founder of multiple B2B SaaS platforms. Architect of the MotherLode CMI data integration methodology and platform infrastructure. Lucid Tech LLC holds the provisional patent on the MotherLode CMI system.
If you are the right person, you already know why to reach out.
Federal program managers. Sovereign buyers. Refiners building provenance-grade pipelines. Investors who understand data moats. Operators with documented supply.