Most often these are oxides, hydroxides and carbonates: magnetite, hematite, goethite, siderite and their combinations. The ores get their names based on their dominant mineral, and when they talk about types of iron ore, they usually mean differences in mineralogical composition.<\/p>\n\n\n
To avoid confusion, geologists, miners and metallurgists use several levels of classification. In practice, iron ores differentiate<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n These classifications are needed for different tasks. Mineralogical composition is important for assessing washability and metallurgical properties, origin – for searches<\/a> and forecasting of deposits, and product form<\/a> – for logistics and industrial processing.<\/p>\n\n\n Read also:<\/em><\/strong> In applied geology most often allocate<\/a> 4 types of iron ore. Below is a short description of each of them.<\/p>\n\n\n Magnetite is a black or dark gray mineral with a metallic luster. These ores are easy to recognize in the field. Samples are attracted by a magnet, sometimes literally \u201csticking\u201d to it. Due to this, geophysicists have a clear view of magnetite ores, which confidently appear in magnetic and gravity data.<\/p>\n\n\n The main advantage of magnetite is its good workability. Even if the original ore is not very rich, magnetic concentration allows you to obtain a stable concentrate. Magnetite is present at the Kiruna mine in Sweden and the Kovdor deposit in the Murmansk region.<\/p>\n\n\n Hematite is a mineral that is often called blood red ironstone due to the characteristic features on the chip. It is one of the main sources of iron in the world and a valuable raw material for metallurgy. It is found in the mines of North America, Kazakhstan, Russia, Italy, Brazil and other countries.<\/p>\n\n\n If there are few impurities, hematite becomes the main industrial type of iron ore and is often used with minimal beneficiation. When the composition is heterogeneous, processing schemes for enrichment are selected individually for each deposit.<\/p>\n\n\n Brown iron ores are porous, often friable ores with yellow-brown, rusty tints. From the point of view of mineralogy, they are represented by iron hydroxides – goethite and limonite, which are found in the Bakal deposit (Southern Urals) and the Lipetsk iron ore deposit.<\/p>\n\n\n The main advantage of brown iron ore is its close occurrence to the surface and ease of extraction. But this comes at the cost of lower iron content, higher moisture content and limited enrichability. Brown iron ores are often mined in the early stages of field development<\/a> and are replaced by richer ores at depth.<\/p>\n\n\n Siderite is an iron carbonate, an inconspicuous and usually non-magnetic form of iron ore. It contains a significant proportion of carbon dioxide, which makes processing difficult and energy-intensive.<\/p>\n\n\n For this reason, siderite ores are used less frequently than others. Most of the deposits have already been developed, but traces of the mineral are found in such Russian deposits as Akhtinskoye and Bakalskoye (Urals) or Angaro-Pitskoye (Eastern Siberia).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Main types of iron ores<\/h2>\n\n\n
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<\/a>Magnetite ores<\/h3>\n\n\n
Hematite ores<\/h3>\n\n\n
Brown iron ores (goethite-limonite ores)<\/h3>\n\n\n
Siderite ores<\/h3>\n\n\n