Hematite

File:Hematiet (xndr).jpg

A piece of hematite

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.

• Hematite - Titanomagnitite.jpg

  A microscopic picture of hematite

• Hematite structure.jpg

  Crystal structure of hematite

• Hematite-LTH43A.JPG

  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

• Rutile-Hematite-113489.jpg

  Golden acicular crystals of rutile radiating from a center of platy hematite

• Cylinder seal antelope Louvre AM1639.jpg

  Cypro-Minoan cylinder seal (left) made from hematite with corresponding impression (right), approximately 14th century BC

• Hematite-254990.jpg

  A cluster of parallel-growth, mirror-bright, metallic-gray hematite blades from Brazil

• Hematite.bear.660pix.jpg

  Hematite carving, 5 cm (2 in) long

• Hematit 2.jpg

  Hematite, variant specularite (specular hematite), with fine grain shown

Related pages

• Corundum

• Iron(III) oxide
• Rust