Description

Hematite Tumbled Stones

Hematite has a trigonal crystal system. Its mineral class is oxide and coloring is gray metallic or red if ground into powder. It can be formed in several manners: hydrothermally (out of solutions where it forms small kidney shaped crystals), as a sedimentary process (finely distributed red weathering crusts in iron ore deposits), and metamorphically (massive deposits form through loss of water in limonite sediments).

Hematite occurs in tremendous beds around gas vents on lava flows near Vesuvious and in Alaska. The most spectacular plates have been found in metamorphosed Brazilian sediments. Many crystalized specimens come from Elba Italy. The famous “iron roses” from crystal lined pockets in the Alps are unmatched anywhere else, but close examples are now being found in Quartzsite, Arizona. With its many varieties, Hematite, after Quartz, is one of the most common minerals we are likely to naturally encounter.