Joshua Tree National Park attracts millions of visitors each year, and its striking desert landscape is home to many rare species. And the park may soon have a new neighbor: a rare earth mine. Last month, the Australian company Dateline Resources began exploring land next to the park for a potential mine for these valuable materials, and the plan is sparking backlash.
The Music Valley Project
On Feb. 27, 2026, DTR announced its Music Valley project. In an email to GearJunkie, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) confirmed that DTR had filed 969 claims totaling 19,380 acres.
According to a press release, the company explained that past U.S. Geological Surveys indicated that there were concentrations of heavy rare earth elements (HREE) in this area. These 17 elements are critical in manufacturing electric vehicles, wind turbines, and defense technologies.
These so-called “rare” elements are actually widespread, but China has long dominated the market. The Trump Administration has viewed this as a national security risk and sought to develop the American supply of these important materials.
The Music Valley project will go through several stages. First, DTR began rock chip sampling to “undertake mapping, geochemistry, and geophysics to define drill targets at Music Valley.”
In March, it used “a high-resolution helicopter-borne magnetic and radiometric survey” to identify areas containing Pinto Gneiss, a kind of rock that is known to contain high amounts of HREE. While the main focus will be on these elements, it’s also likely that this land contains gold, and DTR’s surveys will also assess the land’s potential for gold mining.
The company announced on March 17 that it had completed this aerial mapping. The work will “generate a high-resolution dataset for processing and interpreting.”
“Completion of the Music Valley airborne survey represents a step in Dateline’s systematic exploration of this emerging heavy rare earth district. The data will now be processed and integrated with field mapping and rock chip sampling to refine the Company’s geological model and guide the next phase of exploration,” DTR’s Managing Director Stephen Baghdadi said in a press release.
Where Is It?
The land lies in Riverside County, Calif., near the town of Twentynine Palms and close to Joshua Tree National Park. The L.A. Times reported that some of the mining claims lie within 100 feet of the park boundary.
Since its establishment in 1994, Joshua Tree has become a popular national park, with nearly 3 million visitors in 2025. It’s a habitat for 54 rare plant species, as well as the federally threatened desert tortoise.
The Context
Dateline Resources sees the Music Valley project as a crucial step in securing the supply chain. “With supply chain security now a national priority, HREEs represent a strategic gap in the U.S. critical minerals landscape,” it said in a press release. “Through its California rare earth portfolio … Dateline is positioning itself to contribute to both LREE and HREE demand growth while supporting a more secure and diversified domestic supply chain.”
It’s worth noting that most HREE mined in the U.S. will still need to be processed in China, as the country accounts for 90% of global processing.
DTR also owns and operates another mine in California, the Colosseum Mine in the Mojave National Preserve. In 2025, this project sparked controversy. The BLM gave the mine the go-ahead, despite the fact that, as National Park Service (NPS) land, the BLM had no jurisdiction over this area. Multiple California lawmakers objected and called for NPS control and full mineral testing.
The BLM cited Trump’s 2025 executive order: “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production.” This order mandated that the Department of the Interior and Department of Agriculture “identify as many sites as possible on Federal land managed by their respective agencies that may be suitable for leasing or development.”
The Objections
While no drilling will occur inside the park, environmental groups are concerned about how the operations may affect the fragile desert ecosystem. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recognizes this area as a critical habitat for the desert tortoise.
Mining for HREE is no small feat. As explained by Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West, each ton of minerals extracted requires tens of thousands of tons of waste rock to be drilled. Once mined, the minerals are all in the same cluster and have to be individually separated. This complex procedure is energy- and water-intensive and results in “acidic tailings, radioactive byproducts, and toxic refuse.”
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Mountain Pass mine, an HREE mine in California, was beset by several scandals for improperly handling radioactive wastewater.
When asked if the BLM had any comments about possible environmental concerns with Music Valley, a representative responded with the following: “The BLM has not received a plan of operations for this project and therefore has not begun a review of the potential impacts of any future mining operations.”
GJ spoke with Chance Wilcox, the California desert program manager at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), a nonprofit. Wilcox made the point that while the mine won’t lie inside the park, visitors will be able to see it from the North Entrance station. There’s concern that the project will spoil the natural beauty of the area.
“You think about the people who come to Joshua Tree into this area, the Morongo Basin, the people who live here, people who visit here, they are coming for the magic of it all, right? They are coming for the amazing energy that this place has and the pure natural beauty of this landscape that’s unlike any others,” Wilcox said. The mine would “reduce the magic of this untouched landscape that’s unlike anything people have ever seen before.”
Wilcox also worried about how the mine would impact the nearby town of Twentynine Palms, through which the mine’s access road passes. And it’s not just the physical mine itself that could have an impact, but also the noise, trucks, and larger associated infrastructure. “It truly does take away from the reason why people are here and why people love this place.”
The NPCA did not say whether it planned to file a lawsuit, but Wilcox said the organization is “looking at every possible avenue to fight Dateline Resources’ blatant destruction of our national parks.”
GearJunkie reached out to DTR and the NPS for comment, but did not receive a response.
