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Fluorite

Fluorite with Calcite from 15km NE of Buchan, Victoria (Scale: 6.5 cm)

Fluorite, commercially known as fluorspar, is composed mainly of calcium fluoride (CaF2). Pure fluorite contains 51.1% calcium and 48.9% fluorine.

Because of its low melting point, fluorite is used as a metallurgical flux. It is also used as a source of fluorine in chemical manufacturing and in the ceramics industry.

There are few known fluorite deposits in Victoria. The only known production was from Pine Mountain, northwest of Corryong, where the fluorite is in a hydrothermal quartz vein along the contact between a quartz-porphyry dyke and rocks of the Omeo Metamorphic Complex. The metamorphic rocks have been intruded to the north by the Pine Mountain Granite, which is thought to be the source of the fluorite and associated lead–zinc mineralisation.

The Pine Mountain deposit was worked sporadically between 1918 and 1974 and produced a total of 5,240 tonnes of fluorite. There is a similar fluorite deposit 6 km to the southeast at Sandy Creek.

Elsewhere in Victoria, fluorite has been recorded only as an accessory mineral, for example, at Warby Ranges near Wangaratta, and at the Womobi Wolfram Mine at Thologolong. Fluorite has been recorded in the groundmass of Triassic granite porphyries around Benambra, in joints in the Lake Boga Granite, and as thin veins in limestone in the Buchan area.

Return to Victorian industrial minerals index page

Further information

To create your own maps online and in real time, plan exploration activities by viewing land status, or download GIS data to add to your own maps, visit GeoVic.

Map: Fluorite in Victoria.