A mineral made of calcium fluoride (CaF₂) that comes in many colors and is used in metallurgy, optics, and as a gemstone.
From Latin 'fluorspar' or 'fluxspar'—'flux' meaning to flow and 'spar' meaning a crystalline mineral. The name reflects its historical use as a flux in metalworking to help ores melt.
Fluorite is where the entire chemistry of fluorine began—medieval metalworkers noticed that heating fluorite helped metals flow better, but they didn't know why, and it took until the 1700s-1800s for chemists to isolate the element fluorine from this mineral.
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