Most Abundant Rare Earth Elements in Earth's Crust

About This Dataset

This chart ranks the rare earth elements by their abundance in Earth's crust, in parts per million. Despite the name, most rare earths are surprisingly common, cerium is more abundant than copper.

✨ AI Insight

The 'rare earth' label is misleading. Cerium, the most abundant, occurs at 66.5 ppm in Earth's crust, making it more common than copper, tin or lead. Neodymium (41.5 ppm), the key ingredient in high-strength permanent magnets, and lanthanum (39 ppm) are also relatively plentiful, as is yttrium (33 ppm). A clear divide separates these four leaders from the rest: praseodymium drops to 9.2 ppm, and the heavier rare earths, samarium, gadolinium, dysprosium, erbium and ytterbium, fall between 3 and 7 ppm. The real challenge with rare earths is not scarcity but dispersion, they are thinly spread and rarely concentrated into economically minable ore. That is why supply chains, not geology, dominate their strategic importance in electronics, wind turbines and electric vehicles.

Source: Rare-earth element (crustal abundance)

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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Cerium leads with 67 in All Time.

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Average value in All Time: 21 · median: 8.

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Gap in All Time: Cerium is 20.8× larger than Ytterbium.