30-6 Fluorite Geochemistry and Machine Learning Fingerprint Critical Mineral Systems

Session: Geological and Geochemical Investigations of Critical Minerals in New Mexico and Beyond, and Technological Advances in Extraction of Critical Minerals

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Fluorite (CaF₂) occurs in a wide variety of critical mineral deposit types and settings yet its use as a geochemical pathfinder has remained limited. This study demonstrates that fluorite geochemistry is a robust recorder of mineralization fertility and metallogenesis by applying statistical and machine-learning methods to a new global fluorite geochemical database. Carbonatites and rare earth element (REE) deposits are relatively enriched in Sr and REEs and have minimal Eu anomalies. These characteristics enable construction of bivariate discrimination diagrams that correctly identify 78% of carbonatite-related fluorite and 88% of fluorite from rare earth element deposits. Random forest classifiers developed for a wide range of deposit types achieve even higher accuracies (up to 88–96%), highlighting the importance of multivariate trace element data for optimal fluorite classification. The recognition of diagnostic fluorite compositional fingerprints, particularly in REE-fertile systems, underscores fluorite’s potential as a powerful pathfinder for critical mineral exploration in F-bearing environments. Ongoing characterization of fluorite from the Mountain Pass REE deposit and fluorite veins in the Mojave Desert is being used to evaluate the effectiveness of fluorite geochemistry as an exploration tool in REE‑fertile settings.

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