Natural Resources of North Carolina

Key Natural Resources

Agriculture (Top U.S. producer)

• Sweet potatoes, tobacco, poultry/eggs, pork, soybeans, corn, cotton, peanuts, blueberries, strawberries.

Forestry

• Loblolly pine, longleaf pine, oak, hickory, cypress – timber, pulp, pellets.

Minerals

• Phosphate (Lee Creek), lithium (Kings Mountain), feldspar, mica, olivine, crushed stone, sand/gravel.
• Historical: gold (first US gold rush, 1799), copper, iron, tungsten.

Water

• Rivers: Cape Fear, Neuse, Tar-Pamlico, Roanoke, Yadkin-Pee Dee, Catawba, French Broad.
• Estuaries: Albemarle-Pamlico Sound (2nd largest US estuary).
• Groundwater: Aquifers (Castle Hayne, Peedee) supply drinking/irrigation.

Coastal & Marine

• Outer Banks, Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout – tourism, fisheries (shrimp, crab, finfish).
• Offshore wind potential.

Energy

• Nuclear (Brunswick, McGuire, Shearon Harris), hydro, growing solar.