The Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming has been continuously productive as a mining region since 1876. Most of its history has been a gold story, anchored by the Homestake Mine in Lead, which produced more than 40 million ounces of gold over 125 years of operation. [1] Today, the district’s profile is changing. Federal critical minerals policy, FAST-41 permitting acceleration, and renewed exploration capital are converging on the Black Hills not just for gold but for a portfolio of commodities the United States increasingly depends on imports to supply.
In April 2026, the federal Permitting Council selected the Bear Lodge rare earth project on the Wyoming side of the Black Hills for FAST-41 fast-tracked permitting. [2] The Dewey-Burdock uranium project on the South Dakota side had previously been selected for the same federal acceleration program. [2] Lithium, tin, tantalum, and gold exploration are all active in the broader Black Hills region.
This page is an educational guide to the Black Hills critical minerals corridor: what is being explored, where, by whom, and how it fits into the broader US critical minerals supply chain story.
Multiple commodities currently active in Black Hills exploration and historic production appear on the 2025 US Critical Minerals List. [3]
Lithium. Active exploration in the southern Black Hills (Custer area pegmatites) and northwestern Black Hills (Tinton District). The Black Hills was a significant historic US lithium producer, with approximately 200,000 tonnes of lithium produced from spodumene-bearing pegmatites between the 1940s and 1950s.
Tin. Historic production from the Tinton Pegmatite District between 1903 and the 1950s. Active modern exploration limited to a small number of operators.
Tantalum. Historic co-production with tin and lithium in the Tinton District. The 1939 USBM Information Circular 7084 specifically documented tantalum mineralization in the Volney pegmatite. [4]
Uranium. Historic production in the southern Black Hills (Edgemont area) until the 1970s. Active modern projects include the Dewey-Burdock in-situ recovery uranium project, currently progressing through federal FAST-41 permitting. [2]
Rare earth elements. Active modern project at Bear Lodge in the Wyoming portion of the Black Hills, advancing through FAST-41 permitting. [2] Bear Lodge is among the most advanced US rare earth deposits outside Mountain Pass, California.
Cesium and rubidium. Both appear on the 2025 Critical Minerals List and both are documented occurrences within Black Hills LCT pegmatite systems.
Gold. Not on the Critical Minerals List, but central to the Black Hills mining identity. Total Black Hills gold production exceeds 50 million ounces. The April 2026 Lion Rock gold discovery at Volney was the first significant new Black Hills gold discovery in years. [5]
The breadth of critical minerals occurrence in the Black Hills is unusual. Few US mining regions host historic production of multiple commodities now considered strategically important. Few jurisdictions sit within a single state regulatory framework that compares favorably with most US federal jurisdictions on permitting timelines. The Black Hills’ combination of geological diversity, infrastructure, and jurisdiction is part of what is driving the renewed attention.
The Black Hills is geographically a single mountain range covering approximately 1.2 million acres in western South Dakota and extending into northeastern Wyoming. Geologically, it contains multiple distinct mining districts with different deposit styles and different commodity profiles.
The Homestake District. Centered on the city of Lead in Lawrence County, South Dakota. The Homestake District hosts the iron-formation-hosted Homestake gold deposit and surrounding properties exploring the same Homestake Formation stratigraphic horizon. The district is the focus of most current Black Hills gold exploration capital, with multiple companies advancing properties around the historic mine. Read more about the Homestake District here.
The Tinton Pegmatite District. Located on the northwest flank of the Black Hills uplift, approximately 20 kilometres west of Lead and straddling the South Dakota-Wyoming state line. The Tinton District is the Black Hills’ principal pegmatite-dominated district, with historic production of tin, tantalum, lithium, gold, and ancillary critical minerals. The district was an active producer between approximately 1903 and the 1950s and has been substantially under-explored by modern standards. Read more about the Tinton District here.
The two districts share a regional Black Hills geological setting but represent fundamentally different deposit styles. Homestake is iron-formation-hosted gold. Tinton is LCT pegmatite-hosted tin, tantalum, lithium, and shear-hosted gold. Most professional Black Hills exploration through the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries focused on the Homestake corridor. The Tinton District’s combination of pegmatite-hosted critical minerals and shear-hosted gold did not fit the gold-only exploration models that dominated the region, and the district was largely left untested with modern drilling technology after the 1950s.
The Bear Lodge rare earth project, although geographically part of the broader Black Hills uplift, sits on the Wyoming side of the state line in a separate geological setting from both Homestake and Tinton. Bear Lodge is associated with Tertiary alkalic igneous intrusions hosting carbonatite-related rare earth mineralization.
The current Black Hills critical minerals exploration and development pipeline includes projects across multiple commodities and at multiple development stages.
Bear Lodge (rare earth elements). Located in the Wyoming portion of the Black Hills. Selected for FAST-41 federal permitting acceleration in April 2026. Among the most advanced US rare earth deposits outside Mountain Pass, California. [2]
Dewey-Burdock (uranium). Located near Edgemont along the southwestern edge of the Black Hills in South Dakota. In-situ recovery uranium project. Selected for FAST-41 federal permitting acceleration in earlier action. Project has been in development for nearly two decades and continues to progress through federal and state permitting. [2]
Wharf Mine (gold). Operated by Coeur Mining. The only currently active large-scale gold mine in the Black Hills. Open-pit, heap-leach gold operation that produced approximately 93,000 ounces of gold in 2023. Wharf produces gold from Tertiary replacement deposits in the Cambrian Deadwood Formation, distinct from the iron-formation Homestake style. [6]
Volney Project (lithium, tin, tantalum, gold). Operated by Lion Rock Resources in the Tinton District. The most active multi-commodity critical minerals exploration program in the Black Hills as of 2026. Phase 1 drilling completed in early 2026 returned multiple intercepts of lithium, tin, tantalum, and a new gold discovery within a single 142-hectare private-land claim block. [7] [5]
Various lithium juniors (lithium). Active exploration in the southern Black Hills (Custer area) and various portions of the broader Black Hills pegmatite province by multiple TSX Venture Exchange and ASX-listed juniors.
Various gold juniors (gold). Active exploration in the Homestake District and surrounding areas by multiple companies. The Homestake District remains the focus of most Black Hills gold exploration capital.
The combination of advanced uranium and rare earth projects (Bear Lodge, Dewey-Burdock), an active gold producer (Wharf), an active multi-commodity critical minerals explorer (Volney), and a broader pipeline of lithium, gold, and pegmatite-focused juniors makes the Black Hills one of the most diversified active US critical minerals corridors.
The 2026 Black Hills critical minerals profile reflects several converging trends that did not exist a decade ago.
Federal permitting acceleration. FAST-41 inclusion of Bear Lodge and Dewey-Burdock represents the federal government identifying Black Hills mineral projects as priority candidates for accelerated permitting. FAST-41 can shave approximately 18 months off a project’s federal permitting timeline. [2] Selection signals that federal agencies view the projects as both strategically important and reasonably advanced.
State regulatory framework. South Dakota operates its mining permitting framework through the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR). The state is consistently ranked among the most mining-friendly jurisdictions globally. State permitting timelines are materially shorter than federal-land permitting timelines for most project types, and South Dakota does not have a history of state-level mining moratoriums or extraordinary regulatory delay. Wyoming operates a similarly mining-friendly framework on its side of the Black Hills.
Private land position. Significant portions of the historic Black Hills mining districts, particularly within the Tinton District, sit on private land where exploration permitting is faster and simpler than on federal land. Volney consists of 142 hectares of private claims with surface and mineral rights held outright. Dewey-Burdock and Bear Lodge are largely on private and state-leased ground.
Critical minerals policy support. The 2025 Critical Minerals List inclusion of lithium, tin, tantalum, and rare earths places the Black Hills’ principal commodity exposure within the active focus of US federal industrial policy. DPA Title III investments, DOE Critical Minerals and Materials program funding, and EXIM Bank Project Vault stockpile initiatives have all directed significant capital toward the same commodity categories that the Black Hills produces.
Established infrastructure. The Black Hills hosts power, water, road, and rail infrastructure inherited from 150 years of continuous mining activity. The region has a workforce trained in mining and mineral processing. Service contractors, drillers, and assay laboratories operate in the region. The infrastructure base substantially reduces the timeline and cost of any new exploration or development program compared with greenfield jurisdictions.
The combination of federal permitting acceleration, supportive state regulation, private-land position, critical minerals policy alignment, and existing infrastructure produces a setting that is structurally advantaged for modern critical minerals development.
The Black Hills’ geological endowment in tin, tantalum, and lithium, confirmed by both historic production records and recent exploration results, positions it as one of the few US districts with the potential to make a major contribution to domestic supply. Historical tin grades from the region’s pegmatite and hard-rock systems, combined with recent tantalum and lithium assay results from modern drilling, point to an economic profile that warrants serious attention from both industry and policymakers. [8]
That attention is already materializing at the federal level. The 2025 Critical Minerals List exists because supply chain concentration creates disproportionate risk relative to absolute tonnage. A project that produces domestic tin or tantalum concentrate into a US refining facility supports the supply chain in a way that imported equivalent tonnage does not. The Department of Defense’s $19 million DPA Title III investment in the Coatesville tin smelter does not become operationally meaningful without domestic feedstock to supply it. [9]
The Black Hills, as one of the few US regions with documented historic production of tin, tantalum, and lithium from a single LCT pegmatite system, sits at the upstream end of that policy logic. Critically, the region also has the potential to enter the market at speed. Unlike greenfield discoveries in remote jurisdictions, the Black Hills benefits from existing infrastructure, established permitting frameworks in South Dakota, and proximity to downstream processing capacity already being built with federal support. Whether the district delivers commercial domestic supply over the next decade depends on geology, capital, and policy alignment. In 2026, all three are converging.
Lion Rock Resources (TSXV: ROAR, OTCQB: LRRIF, FSE: KGB) operates the Volney Project in the Tinton District of the Black Hills. The 142-hectare private-land property is one of the most active multi-commodity critical minerals exploration programs in the Black Hills as of 2026. Phase 1 drilling completed in early 2026 returned: [7]
For the full project context, see the dedicated lithium, tin, tantalum, and gold project pages.
This page is an educational guide to Black Hills critical minerals exploration and development. It does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation to purchase securities, or an offer of securities for sale. Federal program descriptions and regulatory references are provided for educational context. Critical minerals data are sourced from USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025 and reflect 2024 data. References to other companies, mines, or projects are factual and do not imply any endorsement, partnership, or equivalence with Lion Rock Resources or its projects. Reported drill intervals are downhole lengths. True widths are unknown. Grades are uncut.
[1] Norton, J.J. (1974), “Gold in the Black Hills, South Dakota, and how new deposits might be found.” US Geological Survey Publications Warehouse. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70046663
[2] South Dakota Searchlight (April 5, 2026), “Second Black Hills mining proposal selected for federal fast-track permitting.” https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2026/04/05/second-black-hills-mining-proposal-selected-for-federal-fast-track-permitting/
[3] US Geological Survey, “About the 2025 List of Critical Minerals.” https://www.usgs.gov/programs/mineral-resources-program/science/about-2025-list-critical-minerals
[4] US Bureau of Mines (1939), Tantalum in the Volney Pegmatite, Tinton, South Dakota. Information Circular 7084.
[5] Lion Rock Resources Inc. (2026), “Lion Rock Makes New Gold Discovery at Volney, South Dakota,” news release dated April 8, 2026. https://lionrockresources.com/news/lion-rock-makes-new-gold-discovery-at-volney-south-dakota
[6] Coeur Mining Inc., 2023 Annual Operating Results. https://www.coeur.com/
[7] Lion Rock Resources Inc. (2026), “Lion Rock’s First Results From Maiden Drill Program Reveals Discovery of Multiple Critical Mineral Intercepts Within the Volney Pegmatite,” news release dated February 26, 2026. https://lionrockresources.com/news/lion-rocks-first-results-from-maiden-drill-program-reveals-discovery-of-multiple-critical-mineral-intercepts-within-the-volney-pegmatite
[8] US Geological Survey (2025), Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mcs2025
[9] US Geological Survey (2025), Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025: Tin. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2025/mcs2025-tin.pdf?v=051302
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