Deposit

Southern Ravalli County

Southern Ravalli County is a rare earth occurrence in Montana, recorded in the USGS USMIN rare earth element occurrence database (ver. 4.0, June 2019).

Facts on this page last re-verified Aug 12, 2026 — the oldest verification date among its current claims. How we verify.

Location: Montana, United States (45.519, -114.317 approx.)

Commodities: rare earth elements; niobium

Deposit model: carbonatite · carbonatite deposits

Geology

Carbonate-rich rocks [carbonatite] rocks in southern Ravalli County, Montana, contain columbium [Nb] and rare-earth minerals. "Columbite and aeschynite are the principal columbium-bearing minerals, whereas ancylite, allanite, and monazite contain rare earths." (Crowley (1960))

Exploration and site history

Discovery — Columbite discovered and identified, 1954 (Crowley (1960))
Exploration — Deposits explored and small test lot of ore shipped, 1955–1956 (Crowley (1960))

Record imported from USGS USMIN ver. 4.0 (June 2019). Developments after that date appear on facility records, not here; see the methodology.

Sources

U.S. Geological Survey · published Jun 1, 2019 · retrieved Aug 12, 2026 · archive unavailable: Wayback snapshot 20260427015518 of the ScienceBase item exists but the archive service returned 503 on verification 2026-08-12; recheck on a weekly pass