Iron

Native iron is not usually found because it oxidizes very quickly. The commercial deposits that exist are from ores of iron and the principal one is hematite. It is in most cases very easy to spot out ores of iron due to their brown color and their heavy specific gravity. The ones that have a higher percentage of iron will show an easy to recognize ring when it is banded together. Due to the fact that native iron is not commonly found it has a good amount of value to rock collectors. Iron has a steel grey and crystalline color to it. It can most commonly be found in meteorites however sometimes it can also be found in basalt. Iron has a metallic luster, a hardness of 4.5 and a specific gravity of 7.4 to 7.6. In the United States, nearly all of the iron ore that is mined is used for making steel. The same is true all over the world. Native iron by itself is not as tough and hard as required for construction and other purposes. Therefore native iron is alloyed with a mixture of elements some of which include tungsten, manganese, nickel, vanadium, and chromium in order to toughen and harden it, and this creates valuable steel for construction, automobiles, and other types of transportation like as trucks, trains and train tracks. Even as the other uses for iron ore and iron are only a very diminutive quantity of the consumption, they offer superb examples of the creativity and the huge number of uses that man is able to create from our natural resources.