Hematite

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Mineral guide

Learn about Hematite

iron oxide with steel-gray to jet-black crystals and red earthy varieties; prized iron-rose rosettes and kidney ore, with a diagnostic red streak.

Regional guide

Hematite from Rio Marina, Elba Island, Italy

Rio Marina is one of the great European names for hematite: a locality where iron ore history, Mediterranean landscape, and top-tier crystallization meet in the same specimen. The best pieces show the unmistakable Rio Marina look — black to steel-gray, mirror-bright hematite crystals, commonly tabular, lamellar, rhombohedral, or complex, sometimes broken into glittering micaceous plates and sometimes flashed with natural iridescence from thin alteration films of iron oxides and oxyhydroxides. On the finest examples the crystals sit with quartz or brassy pyrite, giving the specimen a sharp contrast between black metallic hematite, pale quartz, and gold pyrite.