Hematite
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Hematite or haematite is the main ore of iron. It is mostly iron(III) oxide. Millions of tons are dug up every year. This is usually to feed to blast furnaces to make steel. It is a mineral related to corundum. It is an oxide.
It has a metallic luster. It has no cleavage (the way a mineral breaks). It has a fracture. The fracture is irregular and uneven. Hematite on the hardness scale is 5 to 6. It has a bright red to dark red streak. To find the streak, you take the mineral and run it across a plate of unglazed porcelain. The colours can be metallic grey to a dark, rough and earthy red colour. Hematite has the chemical formula of Fe2O3.
Hematite Media
Image mosaic from the Mars Exploration Rover Microscopic Imager shows Hematite spherules partly embedded in rock at the Opportunity landing site. Image is around 5 cm (2 in) across.
A microscopic picture of hematite
Crystal structure of hematite
A rare pseudo-scalenohedral crystal habit
Three gemmy quartz crystals containing bright rust-red inclusions of hematite, on a field of sparkly black specular hematite
Golden acicular crystals of rutile radiating from a center of platy hematite
Cypro-Minoan cylinder seal (left) made from hematite with corresponding impression (right), approximately 14th century BC
A cluster of parallel-growth, mirror-bright, metallic-gray hematite blades from Brazil
Hematite carving, 5 cm (2 in) long
Hematite, variant specularite (specular hematite), with fine grain shown
