Hematite

specimen number:
2062304

location:
Montreal Mine, Iron Co., Wisconsin, USA

description:
Good example of lustrous needle ore hematite. Classic locality.

The Montreal mine, located in Iron County, Wisconsin, was one of the largest and deepest underground iron mines in the Penokee-Gogebic Iron Range. Geologically, the deposit consists of high-grade hematite and goethite ore bodies hosted within the Paleoproterozoic Ironwood Iron-Formation, where iron-rich sedimentary strata were tilted steeply northward and crosscut by Keweenawan diabase dikes that formed structural troughs, trapping secondary enrichment fluids. Underground operations began in 1886 under the management of the Montreal Mining Company and expanded massively after Oglebay Norton and Company assumed management in the early twentieth century, eventually reaching a vertical depth of nearly four thousand feet. The mine served as a major domestic supplier of merchantable iron ore for the Great Lakes steel industry, operating continuously through peak production eras in World War I and World War II until declining domestic ore demands and rising underground production costs led to its permanent closure in August 1962.

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