Deposit

Vero Beach

Vero Beach is a rare earth occurrence in Florida, 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: Florida, United States (27.636, -80.351 approx.)

Commodities: ilmenite; rutile; zircon; rare earth elements (in monazite and xenotime); garnet

Deposit model: coastal heavy-mineral sands

Geology

The company [Riz Mineral Co.] began [about 1941] to recover monazite, as well as ilmenite, rutile, and zircon, from dune sand near Vero Beach. (Staatz and others (1980))

Exploration and site history

Active — Operated by Riz Mineral Co.; Products were ilmenite, rutile, zircon, and monazite, 1943–1948 (Elsner (1997))
Active — Operated by Florida Ore Processing Co.; Products were ilmenite, rutile, zircon, monazite, and garnet, 1948–1954 (Elsner (1997))

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