BY STEVE VOYNICK
Ivittuut (formerly Ivigtut) on Arsuk Fiord on Greenland’s southwest coast, the sole commercial source of cryolite, as it appeared in the 1920s.
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
Cryolite is something of an enigma among minerals.It is rare, and its only significant deposit is located on the remote coast of Greenland. Nevertheless, cryolite was once of critical industrial and strategic importance. And it is the only mineral that has ever been mined to commercial extinction.