In Avatar (2009), what valuable mineral do humans mine on Pandora?

In Avatar (2009), humans mine the valuable mineral unobtanium on Pandora.

Unobtanium is the resource driving the human corporation’s operations on the moon. The deposits lie beneath areas inhabited by the Na’vi, including the region around the giant Hometree. The desire to extract the mineral creates the film’s central economic and political conflict.

The word “unobtanium” is a longstanding engineering slang term for a hypothetical material with extraordinary or impossible properties. Avatar turns that informal expression into the name of a fictional mineral with immense commercial value.

The mineral is sometimes confused with the biological and spiritual elements of Pandora’s world, such as Eywa and the moon’s interconnected ecosystem. Unobtanium is instead the human mining target and represents the material incentive behind the invasion.