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Elemental iron is virtually absent on the Earth's surface except as iron-nickel alloys from meteorites and very rare forms of deep mantle xenoliths.Although iron is the fourth most abundant element in Earth's crust, composing about 5% by weight, [4] the vast majority is bound in silicate or, more rarely, carbonate minerals, and smelting pure iron from these minerals would require a prohibitive ...
William Austin Burt discovered iron ore in the Marquette Range near Negaunee, Michigan in 1844. Iron ore was discovered on the Menominee Range in 1867 and on the Gogebic Range in 1884. It was first discovered in Minnesota on the Vermilion Range in 1885, the Mesabi Range in 1890, and the Cuyuna Range in 1903. [2]
Banded iron formations were first discovered in northern Michigan in 1844. Banded iron formations account for more than 60% of global iron reserves and provide most of the iron ore presently mined. Most formations can be found in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United States.
An axe made of iron, dating from the Swedish Iron Age. The earliest object found in Europe and containing smelted iron (about 5%) is a knife blade from the Belgorod Oblast of Russia, dated to c. 2300 BC and assigned to the Catacomb culture. [49] [50] During most of the Middle and Late Bronze Age in Europe, iron was present, though scarce.
The earliest metal manipulation was probably hammering (Craddock 1995, 1999), where copper ore was pounded into thin sheets. The ore (if there were large enough pieces of metal separate from mineral) could be beneficiated ('made better') before or after melting, where the prills of metal could be hand-picked from the cooled slag.
But there was limited use of native (unsmelted) iron ore, from magnetite, iron pyrite and ilmenite (iron–titanium), especially in the Andes (Chavin and Moche cultures) and Mesoamerica, after 900 BC and until c. 500 CE. Various forms of iron ore were mined, [30] drilled and highly polished.
The Ngwenya Mine is located on Bomvu Ridge, northwest of Mbabane and near the northwestern border of Eswatini (Swaziland). This mine is considered to be the world's oldest. The haematite ore deposit was used in the Middle Stone Age to extract red ochre, while in later times the deposit was mined for iron smelting and iron ore expo
The earliest tentative evidence for iron-making is a small number of iron fragments with the appropriate amounts of carbon admixture found in the Proto-Hittite layers at Kaman-Kalehöyük in modern-day Turkey, dated to 2200–2000 BC.