Which ore does iron come from

To make iron stronger and less likely to rust it can be combined with carbon and other elements to make steel. Steel pylon suspending overhead power lines. Iron in cast form has many specific uses e. There are many different kinds of steel made by adding carbon along with other elements such as chromium, manganese, nickel, molybdenum to form a range of alloys with different properties e.

By changing the proportions of these additional elements, it is possible to make steels suitable for a great variety of uses. The table below shows the special properties and uses of some iron compounds. Steel buildings, bridges such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge , reinforcing in concrete buildings, roofing, cladding, doors, fencing.

Animals need iron for making energy and carrying blood around the body foods rich in iron include red meat and liver, egg yolks and leafy green vegetables.

Iron was the first element to be recognised as essential for people. A physician in successfully used iron to treat patients who were pale, lacking in energy and suffering from anaemia. Iron is among the oldest metals known to humans. Paleolithic Man used finely ground haematite as body paint. Around BC, the Egyptians and Sumerians first used iron from meteorites to make beads, ornaments, weapons and tools.

The time line of Iron Age varied geographically; for instance the Hittites forged iron they heated it, then hammered it, then cooled it quickly to produce iron that was harder than the bronze that people had been using before around the period of - BC and similarly according to Tewari , archaeological evidence indicates iron working in India occurred around to BC.

By the time of the Roman Empire, iron was being used for beds, gates, chariots, nails, saws, axes, spears, fishhooks and tools for sharpening. During the Middle Ages, with the introduction of the iron cannon and cannon ball, the consumption of iron increased to overtake copper and bronze as the most widely used metal.

In the late 19th century the Age of Steel began, with wooden ships giving way to steel, machinery coming to factories and the invention of the railroad. Iron is indispensable to modern civilisation and people have been skilled in its use for more than 3, years.

However, its use only became widespread in the 14th century, when smelting furnaces the forerunner of blast furnaces began to replace forges. Iron ores are rocks from which metallic iron can be economically extracted.

Most deposits of iron ore in the world are found in rocks known as banded iron formations BIFs. These are sedimentary rocks that have alternating layers of iron-rich minerals and a fine-grained silica rock called chert. Many of the banded iron formations that are being mined today were formed millions of years ago.

About million years ago there was no or very little oxygen dissolved in the oceans. However, the oceans did contain a lot of dissolved silica, which came from the weathering of rocks. Every now and again this silica precipitated out from the seawater as layers of silica jelly, which slowly hardened to become the rock we call chert. Soluble iron oxide was also produced from the weathering of rocks and was also washed into the sea by rivers.

About million years ago the oceans were inhabited by bacteria that developed the ability to photosynthesise and produce oxygen. There were seasonal 'blooms' that released huge amounts of oxygen into the seawater that reacted with the soluble iron oxide to form insoluble iron oxide. This precipitated out of solution as the minerals magnetite and hematite forming layers of iron among the other layers of sediment on the sea floor.

Iron Order statistics and information. Provide Website Feedback. Department of Earth and Environmental Science. The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is centralized within our Indigenous Initiatives Office.

Skip to main Skip to footer. Earth Sciences Museum. Walking tours Book our space Group Programs Volunteers. Smelting: Mined out of the ground, raw ore is a mixture of materials called ore proper and loose earth called gangue waste.

These BIFs are described below in order of age. Wilgena Hill Jaspilite, Middleback Ranges. It generally has a strong magnetic signature particularly so in Middleback Range, a discontinuous series of strike ridges of BIF extending north-south for 60 km. The source of the magnetic anomaly has been identified as magnetite-rich BIF beneath a cover of haematitic BIF averaging 90m thick.

Returning to the Eyre Peninsula, there has been considerable resource drilling by several companies throughout the whole of the Eyre Peninsula on rocks of magnetite-bearing BIF.

Indeed the Eyre Peninsula region has been confirmed as a major iron ore province in South Australia. Drilling at the Warramboo prospect has identified the source as a metasedimentary magnetite-bearing gneiss of granulite facies, possibly originally a BIF.

Beneficiation testwork by a relatively simple grinding and wet magnetic separation process yielded a grade suitable for use in the production of DRI direct reduced iron feedstock.

Published resource is 3. The Mount Woods Inlier contains considerable strike lengths of linear magnetic anomalies attributed to both BIF and magnetite-rich metasomatite, which interpretation has been confirmed by drilling.

There has been little exploration of these BIFs for iron ore. IMX Resources in drilled their Tomahawk prospect, and confirmed the source of the magnetic anomaly as a magnetite-bearing BIF.

The Ooldea prospect lies on a magnetic anomaly associated with the Karari Fault Zone. The magnetic signature of the Karari Fault persists discontinuously for km to the northeast. Braemar ironstone facies occurs as a stratigraphic package of magnetite-rich ironstone associated with diamictite and is located in the Nackara Arc region of the Adelaide Geosyncline.

The rock has been described as 'Rapitan'-type BIF i. Its iron ore potential was assessed in the early s at the Razorback Ridge prospect. Since then several companies have entered into exploration for iron ore in the region including that part of the Braemar over the border in NSW , with most ground now held under tenure.

Considerable exploration and resource drilling has been completed. In September five companies had identified resources of 7. There are exploration targets for an additional 3 billion tonne, with potential for significant additional resources. Truly the Braemar Iron Ore province is one of the most significant iron ore resources to emerge in recent times.

In the Mount Woods Inlier large accumulations of magnetite-rich metasomatite are evident, and beneath a moderate thickness of cover sediment from a few metres to maximum m. Resource drilling by them identified a further resource of Mtonne at Indeed the Mount Woods Inlier — Hawks Nest regions have emerged as a major iron ore province in their own right, with potential for considerable addition to defined resources, and with as yet untapped potential in the neighbouring Coober Pedy Ridge region to the west, and also south at Giffen Well and other resources near Tarcoola.

The Agery prospect has intervals of massive black magnetite were reported below a deeply weathered basement. The polymetallic nature of these rocks, i. There is a zone extending for some km along the eastern margin of the Gawler Craton, which includes large accumulations of iron oxide generally accepted to be of hydrothermal origin. The most well known example is Olympic Dam, which contains significant volumes of hematite-rich rock.

The iron-rich rocks are not considered to be an economic resource.