Iron Ore is a rock or mineral which iron can be extracted from. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, deep purple, to rusty red. The iron itself is usually found in the form of magnetite, hematite, goethite, limonite or siderite. About 3000 million years ago there was no or very little oxygen dissolved in the oceans, because plants that produce oxygen had not yet evolved. However, the oceans did contain a lot of dissolved silica, which came from the weathering of rocks. Every now and again this silica precipitated out from the seawater as layers of silica jelly, which slowly hardened to become the rock we call chert. Soluble iron oxide was also produced from the weathering of rocks and was washed into the sea by rivers. Some 2500 million years ago oxygen-producing life forms started to evolve and oxygen became part of the Earth's atmosphere. In time some oxygen also dissolved in the seawater where it reacted with the soluble iron oxide to form insoluble iron oxide. Over many millions of years these processes of precipitating silica and iron oxide were repeated over and over again, and resulted in the deposition of alternating layers of chert (which is grey), hematite (which is red) and magnetite (which is black). Thus, the name banded iron formation comes from the characteristic colour banding of these huge deposits, which are well known in Western Australia.
Iron ore is usually melted to produce pig iron (metallic iron), which is used to make steel. Australia is the largest exporter of iron ore in the world and accounted for 48% of total world iron-ore trade in 2014. Australia produces just under 600 million tones of iron ore each year. this number increases each year.
1. Charters Tower - 20.1000° S, 146.2667° E
2. Dalby - 27.1833° S, 151.2667° E 3. Lismore - 28.8167° S, 153.2833° E 4. Launceston - 41.4419° S, 147.1450° E 5. Geelong - 38.1500° S, 144.3500° E 6. Mount Gambier - 37.8294° S, 140.7828° E 7. Pt Pirie - 33.1858° S, 138.0169° E 8. Albany - 35.0228° S, 117.8814° E 9. Busselton - 33.6478° S, 115.3458° E 10. Koolyanobbing - 30.8200° S, 119.5200° E 11. Bunbury - 33.3400° S, 115.6392° E 12. Geraldton - 28.7744° S, 114.6089° E 13. Peak Hill - 32.7167° S, 148.1833° E 14. Port Hedland - 20.3100° S, 118.6011° E 15. Wyndham - 15.4825° S, 128.1228° E Useful Links http://www.australia.gov.au/topics/environment-and-natural-resources/natural-resources http://www.actnrmcouncil.org.au/australias-top-natural-resources-export/ http://www.indexmundi.com/australia/natural_resources.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_farming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diamond_mines Range of different google images |