susan:

yes there is a lot of talk about rare earth minerals and metals.......i have been following them for a couple of years now...

there are 2 types of rare earths, light and heavy.....it is the heavy rare earths that we need to keep an eye on.

many companies are now claiming to be rare earth companies....just like during the uranium boom.....need to find companies with large deposits that can be mined

so....the other issue is the refining of rare earths...you can mine them but they have to be refined and if the only place to refine them is china then the problem of the shortage has not been solved.....we need a north american supply, north american refining and north american production of magnets.......

http://avalonraremetals.com/rare_earth_metal/ this link will take you to a periodic table of rare earths....just in case you forgot you high school chemistry...lol

I follow Great minerals (gwg) , QUC, avalon rare metals( AVL) a list at http://raremetalblog.com/ and http://cjrs.ca/

I like GWG because they have a mine to market plan see this clip

http://watch.bnn.ca/clip288926#clip288926 though this stock is down from where I bought it..

QUC is in quebec and it looks like they have a sizable deposit...and avalon is doing quite well....there are a lot of companies in this space.....

I also like a company called 5Nplus, they are currently refining some of these metals and are known as being in the solar space refining solar grade silicon...but I have to think that refining capacity will be just as important as mining the stuff...

the important thing to look for is the IPO of Molycorp in california....when this happens the whole space will take off......