MAP: Major Source For Idaho Gold, Platinum May Be Near Idaho Peak

As the ground continues to thaw in the mountains of central Idaho following months of cold weather, the sun will soon point state gem seekers toward a wealth of previously undiscovered minerals and rocks.

It was no accident how Idaho got its nickname. There are more types of precious and non-precious stones in Idaho than in any other region in the world. It's for this reason that people travel from all over the United States in search of rare, valuable finds.

One region of the state that rockhounders might want to set the GPS to this summer lies east of the community of Challis, where millions of years ago--before Idaho drifted to its current location and became completely landlocked--a catastrophic event took place and may have left behind trillions of dollars worth of matter.

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A Central Idaho Meteor Impact Site May Hold Trillions Of Dollars In Precious Metals

Precious metals from a meteor Unsplash: Grant Durr

The Beaverhead Impact Crater was left by an asteroid millions of years ago, east of where present-day Challis is located, in Lemhi and Clark counties. The impact zone is the second-largest left by a space rock in the country, according to impactcraters.us.

The impact site was projected to be roughly 150 miles northeast of Idaho's tallest mountain, Borah Peak.

It's well known that asteroids are gold and platinum mines hurling through outer space, and if one were to be harvested, the yield would be worth a fortune that could only be dreamed of. Some of the highest concentrations of valuable precious metals like rhodium may lie near the Idaho-Montana border, where the asteroid touched down so long ago.