Magnet Cove, Arkansas

Southeast of Hot Springs, a basin-shaped valley in Hot Spring County draws geologists from around the world. Magnet Cove takes its name from the magnetite that blankets the soil and pulls at compass needles. The formation is thought to have pushed up from ancient intrusive igneous rock more than one hundred million years ago, shoving rare minerals to the surface.

In the mid-eighteen hundreds, geologist Charles Shepard described a mineral he called arkansite, and serious collecting began. Subsequent surveys found roughly one hundred mineral species in the cove. Titanium-rich minerals including anatase, brookite, rutile, and perovskite cluster here alongside magnetite and novaculite.

The cove is now one of the most celebrated mineral-collecting sites in North America.