Fluorite from the Illinois-Kentucky Fluorspar District (IKFD) has captured the hearts of mineral collectors for decades. In recent years it has exponentially gained in popularity as gone are the days of being able to purchase “spar” by the pound. Recently, the U.S. government classified fluorspar as a critical mineral. This classification has led to numerous federally-funded research projects across the district to assess critical minerals. This presentation aims to introduce the geology and discuss the prospect of critical minerals while taking a walk through the history of the IKFD and looking at some exceptional specimens along the way.
Jared T. Freiburg is the Illinois State Geological Survey’s mineral resource geologist. He is also the president of Saga Minerals, Inc. He received his B.S. and M.S from the University of Illinois at Urbana -Champaign and his PhD at the University of Greifswald, Germany. His research interests include sedimentology, diagenesis, Precambrian geology, and Mississippi Valley-Type mineral deposits. He specializes in sedimentary petrography and employs a variety of microscopy and geochemical techniques in his research. His current research involves understanding the evolution of the Illinois Basin which includes events of rifting and magmatism. He is presently working in and around the Illinois-Kentucky Fluorspar District as part of the United States Geological Survey led Earth Mapping
Resources Initiative (Earth MRI), part of a federal strategic plan to improve the nations understanding of domestic
critical mineral resources.