The bottom line is: The plan is to use satellites already in orbit to detect and map geological and botanical features that might betray the presence of subter

The bottom line is: The plan is to use satellites already in orbit to detect and map geological and botanical features that might betray the presence of subterranean lithium. Though satellite prospecting of this sort has been employed before, to look for metals such as gold and copper, using it to search for lithium is new. The searchers are not searching blind. They know, from mining records dating from the mid-1800s, that there is lithium in Cornwall’s rocks. Those records tell of underground springs containing salts of lithium—at that time quite a recently discovered element.