Canadian Rockhound: Hematite

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Hematite
By Richard Gunter

Hematite, a common iron-bearing mineral. Photo courtesy of theImage.

Hematite, Fe₂O₃, is a very common mineral. You see it every day as rust and as the red colouring in soil. Collector quality hematite is much rarer and occurs as crystals (e.g. Elba, Italy; Victoria Island, NWT) or as botryoidal "kidney ore" (e.g. Cumberland, England).

In Manitoba botryoidal hematite occurs at Red Cliff on Black Island near Hecla. It consists of pea-sized botryoidal masses of red and steely black hematite in a calcite matrix. The underlying occurrence is a weathered pyrite deposit which was buried in the Cambrian and Ordovician by sands of the Winnipeg Formation and by later Paleozoic carbonates.

Red Cliff has the distinction of being the oldest known mineral deposit in Manitoba. It was mentioned by La Verendrye in his journal of exploration in western Canada. The small size of the Red Cliff deposit and the lack of associated base or precious metals has made it uneconomic to mine and so it remains a curiosity.

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The preceding article was first published in the October 1997 issue of the Mineral Society of Manitoba newsletter. Reprinted in the Canadian Rockhound with permission from the author.