These girls might be sitting on buried treasure. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

Afghanistan may be home to $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits, reports The New York Times. This is incredible news for a country that has been troubled by war for the past three decades. Although data on the deposits was actually drawn up by Soviets back in the 1980s, the Times report released earlier this week has everyone buzzing.

The central debate focuses on what this discovery will mean for Afghanistan. Will the deposits provide a much-needed economic revival, or make the country even more vulnerable to corruption and conflict?

Some people are hopeful, trusting the deposits to improve the country's economy and provide jobs. Thomas Gouttierre, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, describes the potential to The Christian Science Monitor:

This puts Afghanistan in a position where it can now work on its reconstruction and development with new resources ... that if exploited appropriately could incorporate many Afghans into the workforce in their country.... It helps [those trying to reconstruct the country] to have alternative economies.

Currently, Afghanistan’s economy relies primarily on illegal opium production -- a trade that fuels oppression and terrorism, points out The Huffington Post. The mineral deposits will potentially provide Afghans with a better economic base.

On the other hand, some worry that Afghanistan will fall prey to the “Natural Resource Curse,” NPR’s Planet Money explains:

Poor countries that are rich in natural resources tend to have more violent conflicts than countries with fewer resources. Their governments are more likely to be corrupt and authoritarian. And the people often don't get any richer when the government sells the country's resources on the global market.

CNN notes that natural resources have sparked fierce civil wars in places like Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Afghans are certainly familiar enough with war. Only time will tell whether the minerals spell more conflict, or will instead cut these people a much-deserved break.