By Ben Mooney

Major Iron Deposits.

Iron ore can be found all over the world but in
Australia the main deposits of this mineral can be
found in the Western Australian Pilbara region.
This area is so rich with the iron ore that you can
see the iron in the rocks as you walk past. The
mountains that this iron comes from are known as
fold mountains these mountains form the range
known as the Hamersly range, this range runs for
460km south from the Fortescue river.

What the mineral looks like.

Iron Ore can look like many things
depending on what grade the ore is if it is a
high grade such as Hematite (70.0%) or
Magnetite (72.4%) then the ore will have a
silver gray type but if the ore has a lower
iron content like Goethite (62.9%) or
Siderite (48.3%) then it is more likely to
look like the type of rock that it was mined
from.

Units: US Dollars per ton (dry metric ton).

(1)

(2)

(3)

Fines lump ore pellets

Contract
Year _____________________________________________________________
1991 |

33.20

52.10

1992 |

31.60

48.40

1993 |

28.10

33.00

43.60

1994 |

24.40

30.40

43.60

1995 |

26.90

33.30

49.10

1996 |

28.50

35.20

52.40

1997 |

28.80

35.20

52.10

1998 |
1999 |

29.60
26.90

36.20
32.20

53.50
46.40

2000 |

27.60

33.90

49.20

2001 |

28.90

35.10

50.10

2002 |

28.60

34.30

47.30

2003 |

31.40

37.30

52.00

2004 |

37.30

44.40

61.80

2005 |

64.00

79.00

115.50

2006 |
2007 |

76.20
83.40

94.00

112.00

Value
Iron ore has a huge impact on the states
economy because it is our largest metal that we
export for example in 2001 58.7% of all metals
exported was iron this is significant because it
made the state a profit of over a billion dollars.
But the iron ore industry is not just valuable
because it makes the state income it also
creates jobs and keeps our unemployment rate
low. It is also said that from one ore cart on a
train the company can pay every worker on the
mine their yearly wage.

Chemical Properties

Name: Iron
Symbol: Fe
Atomic Number: 26
Atomic Mass: 55.845
Melting Point: 1535.0 C
Boiling Point: 2750.0 C
Number of Protons/Electrons: 26
Number of Neutrons: 30
Classification: Transition Metal
Crystal Structure: Cubic
Colour: Silvery

Iron is never actually found in

its elemental form it is always
found bonded with Oxygen,
Carbon or Hydrogen atoms an
example of this is Goethite
which chemical formula is
FeOOH an example of a high
grade ore is magnetite which
chemical formula is Fe3O4 as
you can see the higher the ore
grade the higher the iron content
and the less impurities

Uses
Iron main use is to be made in to steel which
can then be formed into many things such as
cars, houses, machinery and any other things
that need steel to help in construction. Steel is
the most common used metal in the world.
Steel is not one hundred percent iron it
contains other metals such as Carbon
(0.15%), Silicon (0.01%), Sulfur (0.05%) and
Phosphorous (0.02%) and the iron content is
99.2%.

How it is mined
Iron is mined by open cut mining because this is
the most efficient way of getting to all the ore. The
process of a new mine being built is that a survey
team containing drillers and geologists are sent to
an area to determine if the ore in that area is worth
mining. If the ore is good enough and in a large
enough deposit the top soil is removed and work
begins on digging a giant hole in the hill that the
iron is located in.the ore is then dug by an
excavator and put into haul packs which move the
ore to primary and secondary crushers which make
the iron into chunks that are then shipped to ports
for further crushing

Extraction
The extraction of iron from the ore is done
in a blast furnace using heated gasses and
a substance called coke this is known as
reduction. The iron is poured into the
furnace through a tube at the top of the
furnace while at the same time hot gasses
are being blown onto the raw ore once the
ore reaches about half way down coke is
poured in to melt the ore and remove the
oxygen and the impurities once the ore
reaches the bottom it is a molten metal and
that is sucked out while the slag is taken
away and discarded of. The iron is then
made into pellets and shipped around the
world ready to be melted down and made
into the things that we want.

Facts
BHP Billion iron ore holds the world record for the
longest train.

Iron ore was discovered in the pilbara in the

1880s but was not mined until 1960 when the
embargo on iron ore was lifted.

Mt whaleback in Newman is the worlds

biggest single pit open cut iron ore mine.