Hematite

specimen number:
2062307

location:
Empire Mine, Marquette Co., Michigan, USA

description:
Bright lustrous micaceous hematite throughout this quartz matrix. Neat locality example for the species.

The Empire mine, located in Richmond Township near Palmer in Marquette County, Michigan, was a massive open-pit iron mining operation situated on the Marquette Iron Range. Geologically, the mine exploited the Paleoproterozoic Negaunee Iron Formation, focusing on low-grade, fine-grained magnetic taconite ore where magnetite grains were tightly intergrown with chert and silicate minerals. While underground extraction of localized high-grade pockets occurred on the property as early as 1921, major large-scale industrial quarrying began in 1963 when Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. opened a sophisticated processing plant to crush, magnetically separate, and pelletize the low-grade taconite. The operation grew into one of the largest open-pit iron mines in North America, continuously extracting and shipping millions of tons of iron ore pellets annually to domestic steel mills. Due to the depletion of economically viable ore reserves and shifting global steel markets, formal mining and production operations permanently ceased at the Empire mine in August 2016.

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