North Dakota boasts high levels of critical minerals, say geologists.

Geologists have discovered coals enriched in critical minerals in the Bear Den Member of the Golden Valley Formation in North Dakota, covering 340 square miles spread across seven counties in west-central North Dakota. The discovery is documented in a just-released 90-page report, and the model is based on the recent discovery of a 30-foot-thick interval of rocks containing elevated concentrations of many critical minerals. The N.D. Geological Survey has already identified a handful of other weathering zones in the Williston Basin, which will be the subject of future reports.