Talk:Iron ore

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Contents

[edit] Pyrite

I miss mention of pyrite and other sulfidic iron ores which have been used in iron processing in history.

[edit] Mining

The Mining section is too North America specific. An overview of iron ore producers would be helpful.

[edit] Environmental problems

These large tailings basins pose future environmental problems

This statement has been removed, the basins in MN have been regularly tested and shown not to pose any threat other than taking up large areas of land. The materials that make up the tailings are the same as what was mined less the iron. There is little added that is not removed before being deposited in the basin. The areas of land taken up by these basins have become animal sanctuaries. At HibbTac, a mine near the city of Hibbing there are 4 bald eagles living in the basin, as well as moose, deer, geese, duck, fox, and many wild animals from the area that have found a sanctuary from man, as trespassers are not aloud on property and guns are banned. The goose population out there right now is larger than most other groups of geese in the region. The size of the basin is roughly 16miles in diameter so well large in size the amount of wild life per acre is greater than most forest regions. In there testing process they have been found to contain no carcinogens, and minimal to no toxicity. The basins of the outher mines in the regons are very similer to this one. To say they pose an environmental problem seams to be an assumption based only on the fact that it is industry. Its just a place to store the remaining rock that didn’t get turned into pellets.

Hmm... got references to back that up? A 160 - 200 sq. mi. pond of ground up rock is going to have an environmental impact. Will it be a problem for ground water quality ...? I don't know. Was there an environmental impact study? Studies by non-industry scientists? Vsmith 03:24, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I will contact the material testing firm that has dune much of the testing and see if I can get some results, I wont be able to do it right a way but shouldn’t take to long. I also will look into an environmental impact study. I guess mostly my point isn’t that it is a non threat, but more that its persons causing any damage is all the damage there ever will be.
The pond of ground rock is more water than rock. They use water to flow the tailings out into the basin from the mine. The flow enters onto a portion of the basin that has a 25 to 20 ft elevation difference than the rest. The water is then directed across a dame into a lower portion of the basin dropping in elevation around 5 ft. The Course tailings are filtered out at this point and let behind. They then use these course tailings to maintain the parameter damns. The water is then directed across another damn into another portion of the basin again at a lower elevation filtering out more materials. There are 4 such holding ponds with the last one containing a pumping station that pumps water back to the mine to repeat the process. Over time the water level rises and they use the course tailings to raise the dam. The final portion is 80ft deep of water that supports northern pike and walleye. This is only off of personal experience as I have worked on these damns. Ill look into getting some study data for you.
I must concede, I checked with the 2 engineering firms that do testing and such at the mine, and they both told me that the basin was grandfathered in and has had no environmental impact studies. They do routine water sampling of the basin and water that seeps out. Checking near by lakes and rivers, and they have never found anything. But alas the potential of environmental damage or impact of some sort can not be ruled out. I have a hard time saying that knowing what an animal sanctuary it is, granted the wildlife is not tested so there could be some kind of mutation growth or something I guess we just don’t know and therefore I put back the environmental risk statement.
Thanks for the update. Grandfathers win again :-) Probably not a lot to worry about, would've been nice to have had an impact study of some kind. Not much in the way of toxic metals & such, just silica & iron oxides mostly and the ground up rock will probably make soil a whole lot faster than the orig bedrock. My ancestors pioneered in N. Minnesota way back when so I'm just a bit interested in the area. Vsmith 03:33, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
An area of the basin we call the delta builds up a large quantity of the courser tailings, they have a consistency similar to sand, any ways they grow barley in it to keep erosion down. My ancestors also pioneered this area, and we still do I guess:).Zath42 23:43, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Actually, iron ore tailings aren't a big problem; maybe you guys were thinking of the slag? But even then, most smelter slag is used in creative and environmentally friendly ways, typically for surfacing roads. Or at least over here in Australia. They, the smelters, have even had to modifty their fluxes to produce a less glassy slag to improve traction in roadbases.

In other news I have updated the article as best I can. I've only, as of a month ago, started iron ore geology. Let alone smelting. But at any rate, I hope this was a decent contribution. Rolinator 13:28, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Siderite

magnetite (Fe3O4), hematite (Fe2O3), limonite or siderite, all of which are iron oxides.

Siderite isn't oxide, it's iron carbonate. Siim 15:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] US Geological Survey 2004

Take a look at the ratings. How can the US (#6 with 54 mln tonnes) be ahead of Ukraine (#7 with 66 mln tonnes). Also look at Mauritania (#14 with 10 mln tonnes) and Mexico (#15 with 12 mln tonnes). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.44.148.10 (talk • contribs)

just what i needed i finaly got my assiment done affer looking for ages this website had every thing thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.115.251 (talk • contribs)


Also about the survey, China is listed at number one, Australia and Brazil are tied for second, but this contradicts what is written in the statement directly above the table, which says that Brazil is the largest producer then Australia. Which is correct? --Colourblind 02:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


Well... It does say the Brazilian company is the worlds largest producer - doesn't mean china's production is smaller - just many more smaller players involved!TheErrorEliminator 04:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I am rather confused by the data in the table being from 2006 and the data in the footnote coming from 2004. Where did the updated 2006 data come from since the reference takes one to 2004 data? Zentime 16:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Likewise, would like to know where the revised figures for 2006 come from, as some are the same as the US GS, others are not. Also small point: table shows "tons" as unit, whereas US GS data is given in "tonnes" - ie metric, not imperial. MD 15:08, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mining section

The layout of the section on mining seems a bit awkward, my suggestion is:

•the paragraph on world production

•the US geological survey table

•the paragraph about production in Australia - it is more significant than production in the US or Canada

•the section on mining in US and Canada

Also, more could be added about Brazil and China since they are both major producers. If no one has any objections, I would do this myself, however I am a wiki-novice so help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, --Colourblind 02:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Will attempt it later. Also a point is needed for the FMGL paragraph as there is no discussion about tenements in this section, this combined with the terrible grammar and spelling ("forth"?) leads me to believe that this is actually a cheap plug for FMGL which is raising capital as we speak.TheErrorEliminator 13:31, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

chelsea rocks are only found in chelsea island

[edit] Failings and bias.

I have read the article and the discussion.

I have some reservations.

I will try in the coming months to complete the article.

My reservations are that the article is very biased to todays situation, only really concerns two areas (USA and Australia), contains some facts that may be correct just now but was not correct 50 years ago, and is partly not Iron Ore but iron making.

I confess that my wiewpont is biased to Kiruna mine competition. Seniorsag 14:23, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] No discussion of depletion?

One of the most basic question that children ask has been left largely unanswered on the mineral resource wiki's. How many kids want to do a school assignment and answer the question, "How much is there?" Now adults might ask further questions, such as "How long will it last at current rates of consumption?" and "How long will it last at exponentially increasing rates of consumption?" and then "What are we going to do as this resource peaks and starts to become ever more expensive to extract?" These issues have largely been ignored. For quality control issues it is time to ask some experts in the various mineral resources the answers to these questions, especially how long a resource has against a low exponential increase (of say 2% a year) against a higher increase (say 10% a year).

Eclipsenow (talk) 09:27, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the exact answer to these questions world wide, however speaking with mining engineers on Minnesotans Iron Range, they consider the Mesabi Range to be a nearly endless supply, certainly cost will go up as material is extracted from deeper and deeper sources. I guess that as deep as they sample they find material. Of course this information is original research because I'm able to directly communicate with the mining engineers, and has no place in the article. It would be interesting to see something published about this... Zath42 (talk) 09:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hematite vs magnetite

Reading this article i came to wonder about the distinction between hematite ang magnetite that is made in the article. From the text, i get the impression that hematite would be the more valuable of the two, which seems to be totally wrong. The refining of magnetite is considerably much more energy efficient as it oxidates when burnt to pellets and thus contributes a great deal of energy to the process. The grinding cost is negligable by comparison. The only problem with magnetite is that it is not as abundant, and that the remaining deposits are increasingly hard to get to (scattered thinly, or lying deep underground). 90.225.95.17 (talk) 18:26, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not think the amount of energy required to smelt eitehr mineral is the crucial factor. It is a matter of what ore isavailable and how much iron it contains, which these days may only be 5%. Peterkingiron (talk)

[edit] Maghemite - thoughts on commerciality

Was wondering what the author(s) opinion is on the iron ore mineral Maghemite. There is little information on the web about this mineral.

I do not want to turn this in a 'stock tip' dicussion so a very brief reason why I am asking.

There is a company in Australia (soon to list) that is currently espousing that they believe they may be able to commercially develop a maghemite resource in New South Wales, despite the ore being very low grade...typically 15%.

The core reason they believe it is feasible is due to maghemite being 'very easily' beneficiated to over 50% by magnetic separation. The other reasons given is that:

1. It is all from surface 2. Rail infrastructure and ports are a non-issue 3. The resource they eventually prove up will be VERY large (billion + tonnes)

They didn't even use the excuse 'higher iron ore prices'.

As far as I know, no maghemite deposits have ever been developed...and this maghemite resource has been known for a very long time (I believe BHP had but then they found the Pilbara...or could have been RIO, cant remember)...which begs the question why no one has ever done anything about it.

Would appreciate your thoughts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.191.11.24 (talk) 09:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rearrangement

In an effort to group related information together, I've unilaterally rearranged some of the content, and have renamed a couple of the sections. – Wdfarmer (talk) 14:01, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me, but I wonder whether the smelting section would not be better being shorter, the remainder of the material being merged with blast furnace. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Magnetite ores

The article says that banded iron formations are composed of magnetite and silica, yet the article on Banded iron formation correctly notes that they can be either magnetite or hematite. This should be corrected. Plazak (talk) 20:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)