Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lorn Vogel bomb here. The mineral hematite has shaped
Speaker 1: civilizations for thousands of years. It was first used as
Speaker 1: the main pigment in cave paintings, often having a reddish hue,
Speaker 1: a signature trait of hematite. Later, it was and still
Speaker 1: is the primary source of iron, shifting the world out
Speaker 1: of the Stone Age and into the Iron Age and beyond.
Speaker 1: While heemotite comes in many different shapes, sizes, colors, and forms,
Speaker 1: it always streaks red, garnering its name, which is based
Speaker 1: on a Greek root for blood and the nickname Bloodstone.
Speaker 1: Haematite can appear steel, gray, black, brown, or red, and
Speaker 1: can shine in the form of metallic crystals or show
Speaker 1: up as dull, reddish rough rocks. And hematite isn't exclusive
Speaker 1: to Earth. It's the main reason that the planet Mars
Speaker 1: is red. Roughly ten to fift of its soil is
Speaker 1: made up of the mineral. Fine grained hematite is dispersed
Speaker 1: around Mars during its many seasonal dust storms. In its
Speaker 1: base form, hematite is an iron oxide composed of iron
Speaker 1: and oxygen. As one of the most abundant minerals on
Speaker 1: the planet Earth. It's perfect for mining to produce iron
Speaker 1: and iron based derivatives like steel. But even though it's plentiful,
Speaker 1: hematite isn't usually found on Earth on its own, or
Speaker 1: rather it's generally found mixed together with other minerals like magnetite.
Speaker 1: For the article, this episode is based on How's to
Speaker 1: Fork spoke by email with Brad le Blanc, senior geoscientist
Speaker 1: for Sweet Lake Land and Oil and Oil Refinery in Louisiana.
Speaker 1: He explained that hematite quote forms as a reaction of
Speaker 1: hot magmas with surrounding materials and likely eroded into concentrated
Speaker 1: layers of down dip sedimentary beds, the separating out via
Speaker 1: gravity distribution. He Atite can also precipitate out of lake waters,
Speaker 1: forming a bed on lake bottoms. As hematite can be
Speaker 1: formed in different ways, it can have different physical traits.
Speaker 1: This can make it rather hard to identify based on
Speaker 1: just appearance alone. Intuitively, it's not easy to think that
Speaker 1: a rainbow metallic crystal is actually the same kind of
Speaker 1: mineral as a rough black specimen, but these are both
Speaker 1: forms of hematite. The mineral does have that big tell
Speaker 1: though regardless of how it looks due to its high
Speaker 1: iron and oxygen content, But when it's scratched against anything,
Speaker 1: it always leaves a reddish brown powder. So how did
Speaker 1: our planet wind up with so much hematite? Back when
Speaker 1: Earth was covered in primordial oceans about two and a
Speaker 1: half billion years ago, there was an abundance of iron
Speaker 1: in the water. When early aquatic plant life that could
Speaker 1: process sunlight and undergo photosynthesis started forming, the oceans began
Speaker 1: filling with oxygen. In this oxygen bound with the iron
Speaker 1: in the water, forming rust particles. Over time, these sank
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the ocean's floor, compressing into banded
Speaker 1: iron deposits, which are the primary source of hematite today.
Speaker 1: This accumulation continued for hundreds of millions of years. Along
Speaker 1: with hematite, in these sedimentary iron deposits, there's also magnetite,
Speaker 1: another primary source of iron. The mixing of these two
Speaker 1: minerals in different quantities is one of the ways hematite
Speaker 1: can take on different forms. While hematite is mainly mined
Speaker 1: for iron, there are several other uses for the mineral
Speaker 1: going back to the earliest civilizations. As we briefly discussed above,
Speaker 1: hematite is one of the main ingredients of red ochre
Speaker 1: pigment used for paints, makeup glazes, and early cave drawings
Speaker 1: in Paleolithic eras a red ochre was also used in
Speaker 1: paintings of the Renaissance era. Since hematite can present itself
Speaker 1: in crystalline forms, it's also used and jewelry. When polished
Speaker 1: or tumbled, the mineral can give off a smooth, metallic appearance,
Speaker 1: making it perfect for beads of all shapes and sizes.
Speaker 1: The mineral has also been used as a healing stone,
Speaker 1: sometimes said to bring relief from medical problems like anemia,
Speaker 1: leg cramps, and insomnia, though there's no scientific proof of
Speaker 1: any of that. But there is a real medical use
Speaker 1: for hemotite. It can stop X rays and so is
Speaker 1: used in radiation shielding for medical equipment. But these other
Speaker 1: uses of hematite don't make up a significant portion of
Speaker 1: the mineral's use overall, not when compared with iron production.
Speaker 1: While hemotite can be found virtually everywhere in the world,
Speaker 1: large quantities of it are mined in places like China, Brazil, Venezuela, Australia,
Speaker 1: and South Africa, as well as across the US in Canada.
Speaker 1: Some of those mines removed more than a hundred million
Speaker 1: tons of iron ore every year, including hemotite, magnetite, and
Speaker 1: other products m Today's episode is based on the article humatite,
Speaker 1: the shapeshifting mineral used from the Stone Age to today
Speaker 1: on how stuff works dot Com, written by Trevor English.
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with how stuff Works dot Com, and it is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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