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Leosallespoli

IRL ores from real mines

38 posts in this topic

These are some photos I've taken at my university showing different ores from different mines. Sorry about the quality, they were taken with my cellphone. Many of you may say that this is just rock, yeah... Most ores don't represent a significant part of the rock, in order to be used they have to be beneficiated, which separetes the ore from the rest(gangue). You can't just mine a rock and smelt it (in 90% of the cases).

P.s. The images are really big.

Zinc ores:

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(Dolomite mineralized with Calamine)

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(Sphalerite from Parnaíba, Minas Gerais, Brazil)

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(This has almost every zinc mineral sphalerite, Calamine and Smithsonite plus Galena. Iporanga, São Paulo, Brazil)

Tin ores:

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(Cassiterite from Oruro, Bolivia)

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(As the tag says "Tin ore", I don't know this one. Cleaveland, Australia)

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(Another unidentified Tin ore in a quartz-latite matrix from Catavi, Bolivia)

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Copper ores:

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(Tetrahedrite from Chile)

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(This is really cool, at least for me, on the left there is Native Copper from Corocore, Bolivia, and on the right you relly can see the Azurite (the blue incrustation) it is from Apiaí, São Paulo, Brazil)

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(Malaquite in Schist)

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(Chalcopyrite - The most important copper ore today)

Iron ores:

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(Limonite from Antônio Pereira, Minas Gerais, Brazil)

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Super cool! Thanks for sharing :D

I'm curious, how do modern miners know when they have hit ore when some of those look so much like rock? Furthermore, how do they determine where to dig?

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Thanks, Monday I'll share more pics from the geology department.

First question is a little complex, but I think I can resume in they really don't know, you don't hit the ore, you hit the rock that may contain the ore. The thing is that the ore may be a small percentage of the rock like in gold mines if you find 10 grams of gold per ton of excavated rock the mine is great! That is why I didn't show the gold ores, you can't see much in it... If you could then it wouldn't be displayed there. But that is an extreme case, coal mines on the other hand you can really see the ore, and maybe is more than 60% of the rock.

So how they know that the rock has the ore, that is the geologist work, they can see the difference, I've shown the azurite which is colorful and easy to spot, but is not just color that gives away, it is shape, texture, cleavage and when you have doubts you go to the lab. I can show you guys the lab if you want.

After a geologist has determine that in an area there may be a mineral of interest then comes the engineers, they use this thing(I don't know the name in english lets just call diamond drill) that digs a small diameter hole that goes really deep (I've seen some 100m long) and it brings up a cilinder of every rock formation that it dug. If you repeat that you can delimitate the area and with geostatistics(Kriging-I've did a post about it not long ago) you can know what is down there with some accuracy and you can know the rock properties.

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Pretty neat! It's kinda cool because where I live (well, basically everywhere you could live in northern Ontario) is near some mining towns, and you can buy small samples of ores like these. But I haven't seen samples so big!

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Pretty neat! It's kinda cool because where I live (well, basically everywhere you could live in northern Ontario) is near some mining towns, and you can buy small samples of ores like these. But I haven't seen samples so big!

http://www.geologyon...siii/viewer.asp

You can see what those claims are on that map, each delimited area could become or is already a mine. Most of them should be mines for stone and aggregate for civil construction they are usually placed near towns so the transport cost is low.

Those samples are like that because when a mine ask for some kind of mineralogic study in our labs they donate samples.

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Tonight I'll post more photos taken from the geology department here

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Since this is from the geology department the minerals are way more evident and they are prettier. The others were from the mining engineering department. If anyone has a request or want to know something else about geology, gemology or mining, please ask and if I don't know I'll find someone who knows

gems

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(amethist geode from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)

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(another amethist geode)

Galena

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(a little galena geode from Marrocos)

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(galena from Kansas-US and Capão Bonito-São Paulo, Brazil)

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I'll now post a lot of iron minerals, Brazil is the largest exporter of Iron and mainly due to Itabirite.

Iron

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(the left is Iridescent Itabirite and the one on the right is Hematite)

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(hematite, Morro Agudo Mine, Minas Gerais, Brazil)

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(Iridescent Hematite from Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil)

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(Iridescent Hematite)

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Sulfur

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(Sulfur Crystals from Spain, yes that is me...)

more Copper:

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(Oxidized native copper from the border between Brazil and Paraguay)

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(someone has asked how it is done the exploration and I have said something about diamond drilling, this is a testimony(?- I don't know how to translate that) of Chalcopirite)

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Sphalerite

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(Different forms of sphalerite ore, I'm lazy)

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(A polished sphalerite)

Cassiterite

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(cassiterite from Rondonia Brazil and from Bolivia)

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(From Minas Gerais, Brazil and Cornwall, England)

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Gypsum

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(The rose of the desert, from Patagonia, Argentina)

Nicolite:

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(Yeah... nothing much here... From Ontario)

Pyrite(fool's gold):

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(yes this was extracted from a mine from Spain)

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Diamond:

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(Diamond from Minas Gerais, Brazil, and a Diamond on Gangue also from Minas Gerais)

Obsidian:

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(obsidian form easter island)

Asphalt and coal:

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Very cool, I always wondered what all of these ores looked like.

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Woah obsidian is like... totally white (at least that specimen). What the heck was mojang thinking?

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Sweet, looks like TFC's cassiterite is pretty dead on from that picture.

And that gypsum just looks awesome!

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thanks for sharing these with us. I find it funny how two sample of the same ore can look so different

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Woah obsidian is like... totally white (at least that specimen). What the heck was mojang thinking?

WHITE?!? I think you're looking at the label.

thanks for sharing these with us. I find it funny how two sample of the same ore can look so different

Yeah, it depends on the matrix rock and if there is any other ion that affects the ore. Now, iridescence is a really cool feature caused possibly by some inclusions like gas cavities or some mineral intergrowth, anyway those are considered to be more valuable as gems than as ores.

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This is a really cool sample and shows one of the reasons why it is called volcanic glass, if you can break it that shell-like fracture appears like glass. The sample I've shown is a little pale and the photo is bad, sorry about that, but is not white.

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man i wish i had gotten of my butt andposted sooner

heres a tetrahedrite crystal in white calcite

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chalcopyrite

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gold barring arsenopyrite

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any of these good?

i have tons of pics of ore thats come directly from the ground at my mine site near Smithers BC

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any of these good?

i have tons of pics of ore thats come directly from the ground at my mine site near Smithers BC

You are a geologist, aren't you?

Those 3 came from the same mine? The last is also in calcite I guess, but the second... Is a clean iridescent chalcopyrite, really good.

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You are a geologist, aren't you?

Those 3 came from the same mine? The last is also in calcite I guess, but the second... Is a clean iridescent chalcopyrite, really good.

he is my people.
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