It seems that most of the commonly mined iridium here comes from the dinosaur killer asteroid strike.. Iridium is very rare in the earth but fairly common in asteroids, so when the big asteroid struck, it vaporized and a thin layer of iridium was spread all over the earth..
Also for some strange reason the denso iridium plugs that i put in a car last week cost a lot more than the Ngk iridium spark plugs.. the Ngk iridiums are available at some places on the net for 5.00 or so each.. so the ngk's have really come down in price.