Telluric iron, also called native iron, is

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

that originated on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

, and is found in a metallic form rather than as an

ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically including metals, concentrated above background levels, and that is economically viable to mine and process. The grade of ore refers to the concentration ...

. Telluric iron is extremely rare, with only one known major deposit in the world, located in

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

Introduction

With the exception of its molten core, nearly all elemental iron on Earth is found as

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

s. All metallic iron was thought to have been transformed into

iron oxide An iron oxide is a chemical compound composed of iron and oxygen. Several iron oxides are recognized. Often they are non-stoichiometric. Ferric oxyhydroxides are a related class of compounds, perhaps the best known of which is rust. Iron ...

s during the

Great Oxidation Event The Great Oxidation Event (GOE) or Great Oxygenation Event, also called the Oxygen Catastrophe, Oxygen Revolution, Oxygen Crisis or Oxygen Holocaust, was a time interval during the Earth's Paleoproterozoic era when the Earth's atmosphere an ...

, beginning roughly 2 billion years ago, among other theories. Until the late 1800s, iron as a

native metal A native metal is any metal that is found pure in its metallic form in nature. Metals that can be found as native element mineral, native deposits singly or in alloys include antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, indium, iron, ma ...

was only a matter of speculation, outside of isolated Greenland. The only known, terrestrial iron in metallic form was found as

meteorite A meteorite is a rock (geology), rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical ...

s, which were deposited onto the Earth from outer space. Telluric iron is so named after the Latin word ''Tellus'', meaning "Earth" (the planet, as opposed to ''terra'' meaning "earth": the land, ground or soil), combined with the suffix ''-ic'' meaning "of" or "born from", differentiating it from

s. Telluric iron resembles

meteoric iron Meteoric iron, sometimes meteoritic iron, is a native metal and early-universe protoplanetary-disk remnant found in meteorites and made from the elements iron and nickel, mainly in the form of the mineral phases kamacite and taenite. Meteoric ...

, in that it contains both a significant amount of

nickel Nickel is a chemical element; it has symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive, but large pieces are slo ...

and Widmanstatten structures. However, telluric iron typically contains only around 3% nickel, which is too low for meteorites, of which none have been found with less than 5%. There are two types of telluric iron: Both ''type 1'' and ''type 2'' contain comparable amounts of nickel and other impurities. The main difference between the two is the

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...

content, which greatly affects the hardness, workability, and melting point of the metal.

Material properties

Telluric iron is metallic iron that formed within the Earth's mantle and crust. Although minor deposits of telluric iron have been found around the world, the west shores of Greenland hold the only known major deposits. However, these deposits may vary drastically in shape and composition, even in the same region, as well as drastic variations between different regions such as Uivfaq, Asuk, Blaafjeld, and Mellemfjord. The common factor is that all Greenlandic deposits tend to be found in dikes (lava-filled fractures in the bedrock) or extrusions where molten rock was able to flow out onto the surface. Another commonality is that all deposits are found in association with

graphite Graphite () is a Crystallinity, crystalline allotrope (form) of the element carbon. It consists of many stacked Layered materials, layers of graphene, typically in excess of hundreds of layers. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable ...

-rich

feldspar Feldspar ( ; sometimes spelled felspar) is a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagiocl ...

, likely contributing to the high carbon-content and low oxide presence in the metal, although it is unknown if the metal managed to escape being oxidized with the rest of Earth's iron, or if it began as beds of ore and coal that subducted and then were naturally smelted in the lava due to the reducing environment provided by the carbon-rich, graphitic

. Telluric iron in Greenland is unique, in that it can be found in nearly all phases of iron-carbon

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metal, metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only metallic alloys are described. Metallic alloys often have prop ...

s, and with drastically varying crystalline structures. In some rock it is found mixed with basalt as very small grains with sharp corners and irregular shapes, whereas in others the small, grain-sized droplets in the molten magma were able to coalesce into larger, pea-sized droplets that crystallized with a mostly spherical or oblong shape. Still in others the dike or extrusion may be made almost entirely out of very high-carbon cast-iron, which could more easily coalesce within the magma and flow into cracks due to its lower viscosity and melting point. This cast iron is often crusted with or contains inclusions of basalt, as it extruded out of the ground as very large, globular masses within the lava, out of which large boulders formed due to natural erosion of the surrounding basalt. Telluric iron is largely divided into two groups, depending on the carbon content. Type 1 is a cast-iron typically containing over 2.0% carbon, while type 2 ranges somewhere between wrought iron and a eutectoid steel. Both types tend to handle weathering in the elements very well, but tend to decompose and crumble very quickly in the dry, controlled atmosphere of a museum, although type 2 is far more prone to this kind of damage.

Type 1

Type 1 telluric iron contains a significant amount of carbon. Type 1 is a white nickel cast-iron, containing 1.7 to 4% carbon and 0.05 to 4% nickel, which is very hard and brittle and does not respond well to

cold working In metallurgy, cold forming or cold working is any metalworking process in which metal is shaped below its recrystallization temperature, usually at the ambient temperature at or near room temperature. Such processes are contrasted with hot wo ...

. The structure of type 1 consists mainly of pearlite and

cementite Cementite (or iron carbide) is a compound of iron and carbon, more precisely an intermediate transition metal carbide with the formula Fe3C. By weight, it is 6.67% carbon and 93.3% iron. It has an orthorhombic crystal structure. It is a hard, b ...

or cohenite, with inclusions of

troilite Troilite () is a rare iron sulfide mineral with the simple formula of FeS. It is the iron-rich endmember of the pyrrhotite group. Pyrrhotite has the formula Fe(1−x)S (x = 0 to 0.2) which is iron deficient. As troilite lacks the iron deficiency ...

and

silicate A silicate is any member of a family of polyatomic anions consisting of silicon and oxygen, usually with the general formula , where . The family includes orthosilicate (), metasilicate (), and pyrosilicate (, ). The name is also used ...

. The individual ferrite grains are typically about a millimeter in size. Although the composition of the grains may vary, even within the same grain, they are mostly composed of fairly pure nickel-ferrite. The ferrite grains are connected with cementite laminations; typically 5–25 micrometers thick; forming the pearlite. Type 1 is found as massive extrusions or very large boulders, typically ranging from a few tons to tens of tons. The metal could not be cold worked by the ancient

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

, (the local inhabitants of Greenland), and proves extremely difficult to machine even with modern tools. Machining of type 1 is possibly best accomplished with a

carborundum Silicon carbide (SiC), also known as carborundum (), is a hard chemical compound containing silicon and carbon. A wide bandgap semiconductor, it occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite, but has been mass-produced as a powder ...

wheel and water cooling. However type 1 was possibly used as hammer and anvil stones by the Inuit. When sawed in half, boulders of type 1 tend to have a thick shell of cast-iron on the outside that can barely be broken with pneumatic jackhammers, but inside a much more brittle construction of iron grains in an almost powdery form, sintered together to form a

porous Porosity or void fraction is a measure of the void (i.e. "empty") spaces in a material, and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0 and 1, or as a percentage between 0% and 100%. Strictly speaking, some tests measure ...

, sponge-iron type of material that pulverizes at the strike of a hammer.

Type 2

Type 2 telluric iron also contains around 0.05 to 4% nickel, but typically less than 0.7% carbon. Type 2 is a malleable nickel-iron which responds well to cold working. The carbon and nickel content have a great effect on the final hardness of the cold-worked piece. Type 2 is found as small grains mixed within

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

rock. The grains are usually 1–5 millimeters in diameter. The grains are usually found individually, separated by the basalt, although they are sometimes

sintered Sintering or frittage is the process of compacting and forming a solid mass of material by pressure or heat without melting it to the point of liquefaction. Sintering happens as part of a manufacturing process used with metals, ceramics, pla ...

together to form larger aggregates. The larger pieces also contain small amounts of cohenite,

ilmenite Ilmenite is a titanium-iron oxide mineral with the idealized formula . It is a weakly magnetic black or steel-gray solid. Ilmenite is the most important ore of titanium and the main source of titanium dioxide, which is used in paints, printi ...

, pearlite, and troilite. Type 2 was used by the

to make items such as knives and ulus. The basalt was usually crushed in order to release the pea-sized grains, which were then hammered into discs about the size of coins. The metal is very soft and can be hammered into very thin plates. These flat discs were usually inserted into long slits carved into bone handles, in rows so that they slightly overlapped each other, forming an edge that resembled a combination of a knife and a

saw A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, Wire saw, wire, or Chainsaw, chain with a hard toothed edge used to cut through material. Various terms are used to describe toothed and abrasive saws. Saws began as serrated materials, and when man ...

(an inverted scalloped edge).

History

Native Iron from Disko Island in Greenland - GeoDIL 0898

Aside from a very small deposit of telluric iron in Kassel, Germany, which has now been depleted, and a few other minor deposits from around the world, the only known major deposits exist in and nearby the area of Disko Bay, in

. The material was found in the volcanic plains of

rock, and used by the local Inuit to make cutting edges for tools like knives and ulus. The Inuit were the only people to make practical use of telluric iron. In 1870,

Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (; 18 November 183212 August 1901) was a Finland-Swedish aristocrat, geologist, mineralogist and Arctic explorer. He was a member of the noble Nordenskiöld family of scientists and held the title of a friherre (ba ...

discovered large boulders of iron near the Disko Bay area of Greenland. Knowing that the Inuit had made tools from the

Cape York meteorite The Cape York meteorite, also known as the Innaanganeq meteorite, is one of the largest known iron meteorites, classified as a medium octahedrite in chemical group IIIAB meteorites, IIIAB. In addition to many small fragments, at least eight large ...

, mainly due to Sir John Ross' discovery that the natives of Greenland used iron knives, Nordenskiöld landed at Fortune Bay on Disko Island to search for the material. The Inuit had told Ross that they got the iron from high on a mountain, at a site where two large boulders lay. One was very hard and could not be broken, but the other was chipped into smaller pieces from which balls of iron were extracted and hammered into flat discs for the knives. Nordenskiöld searched unsuccessfully for the site, until being led by some of the local Inuit to a place called ''Uivfaq'', where large masses of metallic iron were strewn about the area. He assumed that the metal was of meteoric origin, since both contain significant amounts of

and both had

Widmanstätten pattern Widmanstätten patterns (), also known as Thomson structures, are figures of long Phase (matter), phases of nickel–iron, found in the octahedrite shapes of iron meteorite crystals and some pallasites. Iron meteorites are very often formed ...

s. Most scientists at the time believed that no un-

oxidized Redox ( , , reduction–oxidation or oxidation–reduction) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of the reactants change. Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction is ...

''telluric'' iron existed, and few questioned Nordenskiöld's finding. Gustav Nauckhoff made an expedition to Greenland in 1871. Armed with

dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...

and lifting equipment, his expedition collected three large samples of telluric iron, also believing them to be meteoric, per Nordenskiöld's examination, and brought them back to Europe for further study. These samples can be found currently in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, and

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. A 25-ton block now rests outside of the Riksmuseum in Stockholm, a 6.6 ton block outside the Geological Museum in Copenhagen, and a 3-ton block can be found in the Museum of Natural History in Kumpula, Helsinki. Accompanying Nauckhoff in 1871 was K. J. V. Steenstrup. Due to circumstances like the shape of the boulders, which often had sharp corners or jagged edges that are not characteristic of

s (which ablate considerably during

atmospheric entry Atmospheric entry (sometimes listed as Vimpact or Ventry) is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. Atmospheric entry may be ''uncontrolled entr ...

), or the fact that many had areas that were encrusted with

, Steenstrup disagreed with Nordenskiöld about the origin of the boulders, and set out on an expedition of his own in 1878. In 1879, Steenstrup first identified the ''type 2 iron'', showing that it also contained Widmanstätten structures. Steenstrup later reported what he found:

In the autumn of 1879, ''I made a discovery in connection with this matter, for in an old grave at Ekaluit'' ... I found ''9 pieces of
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
containing round balls and irregular pieces of metallic iron.'' These pieces were lying together with bone knives, similar to those brought home by Ross, as well as with the usual stone tools ... whereas the 9 pieces of basalt with the iron balls were evidently the material for the bone knives. This iron is soft and keeps well in the air, from which reason it is fit for use in the manner described by Ross. The rock in which the iron appears is a typical, large-grained felspar-
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
. The discovery has a double significance, firstly, because it is the first time we have seen the material out of which ''the Esquimaux made artificial knives'', and secondly, because it showed ''that they have used telluric iron for that purpose''.

After the discovery in the grave at Ekaluit, Steenstrup found many large outcrops of basalt containing the ''type 2 iron''. Since the ''type 2'' grains are embedded within volcanic basalt that matches the underlying bedrock, Steenstrup was able to show that the iron was from terrestrial, or telluric, sources. In his report, Steenstrup added,

''This peculiar layer of basalt is filled from top to bottom with iron-grains of all sizes'' from a fraction of a millimeter to a length of 18 mm with a breadth of 14 mm, which is the greatest I have found. ... When polished, this iron shows beautiful Widmannstätten figures. ... ''Metallic nickel-iron with Widmannstätten figures has now been proved to be also a telluric mineral'', and the presence of
nickel Nickel is a chemical element; it has symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive, but large pieces are slo ...
together with a certain crystalline structure are consequently not sufficient to give the character of
meteorite A meteorite is a rock (geology), rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical ...
s to loose iron blocks.

Steenstrup's findings were later confirmed by meteorite expert J. Lawrence Smith in 1879, and then by Joh Lorenzen in 1882. The extremely rare telluric iron found in western

has been under study ever since.

Occurrence

In addition to the Disko Island deposit native iron has been reported from Fortune Bay, Mellemfjord, Asuk, and other locations along Greenland's west coast. Other locations include: * Ben Breck,

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

with

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula . It is one of the iron oxide, oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetism, ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetization, magnetized to become a ...

* in County Antrim,

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

* occurs in basalt at Bühl, near Ahnatal-Weimar,

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

, and associated with nodules of pyrite within limestone at Muhlhausen, Thuringia, Germany * near

Rivne Rivne ( ; , ) is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the Rivne Raion (district) within the oblast.

Volhynia Volhynia or Volynia ( ; see #Names and etymology, below) is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between southeastern Poland, southwestern Belarus, and northwestern Ukraine. The borders of the region are not clearly defined, but in ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

* in

trachyte Trachyte () is an extrusive igneous rock composed mostly of alkali feldspar. It is usually light-colored and aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained), with minor amounts of mafic minerals, and is formed by the rapid cooling of lava (or shallow intrus ...

at Auvergne, France * in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

at Grushersk in the Don district southern

Urals The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

associated with pyrite; in the Huntukungskii (Khungtukun) massif, Krasnoyarsk Kray; and on the

Tolbachik Tolbachik () is a complex volcano, volcanic complex on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia. It consists of two volcanoes, Plosky (''flat'') Tolbachik (3,085 m) and Ostry (''sharp'') Tolbachik (3,672 m), which as the names suggest a ...

fissure volcano on the

Kamchatka Peninsula The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...

* in the Hatrurim Formation,

Negev The Negev ( ; ) or Naqab (), is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort town, resort city ...

, Israel * In the United States occurrences have been reported from

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

beds near Cameron, Clinton County, Missouri; and from carboniferous

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

near

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

Somerset County, New Jersey Somerset County is a county located in the north-central part of the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 census, the county was the state's 13th-most-populous county,Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

it has been reported from Cameron Township,

Nipissing District Nipissing District is a district in Northeastern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was created in 1858. The district seat is North Bay. In 2021, the population was 84,716. The land area is ; the population density was , making it o ...

, and on St. Joseph Island in

Lake Huron Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is shared on the north and east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south and west by the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the lake is derived from early French ex ...

. Native nickel-iron alloys with Ni₃Fe to Ni₂Fe occur as placer deposits derived from ultramafic rocks. Awaruite was described in 1885 from

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

References

{{reflist, 25em, refs= {{cite book , last1=Buchwald , first1=Vagn Fabritius , last2=Mosdal , first2=Gert , date=1985 , title=Meteoritic Iron, Telluric Iron and Wrought Iron in Greenland , series=Meddelelser om Grønland 'Monographs on Greenland'' Man & Society 9 , publisher=Kommissionen for videnskabelige Undersogelser i Gronland , pages=19–23 , isbn=9788763511735 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6z8lVGAfBtsC {{cite book , last=Buchwald , first=Vagn Fabritius , date=2005 , title=Iron and steel in ancient times , series=Historisk-filosofiske Skrifter 29 , publisher=Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab (The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters) , pages=35–37 , isbn=8773043087 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c947L8YJerUC {{cite book , editor1-last=Palache , editor1-first=Charles , editor2-last=Berman , editor2-first=Harry , editor3-last=Frondel , editor3-first=Clifford , title=Dana's System of Mineralogy , volume=1 , pages=114–118 , publisher=Wiley , year=1944 {{cite web , title=Iron , website=Handbook of Mineralogy , url=http://www.handbookofmineralogy.com/pdfs/iron.pdf , access-date=2012-08-19 , archive-date=2016-03-03 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303180205/http://www.handbookofmineralogy.com/pdfs/iron.pdf , url-status=dead {{cite journal , first=Joh. , last=Lorenzen , date=July 1884 , title=A Chemical Examination of Greenland Telluric Iron , journal=The Mineralogical Magazine and Journal of the Mineralogical Society , volume=6 , issue=27 , pages=14–38 , url=https://rruff.info/doclib/MinMag/TOC/TOC6/TOC6_27.htm , publisher=Mineralogical Society of Great Britain / Simpkin, Marshall & Co. , doi=10.1180/minmag.1884.006.27.02 , bibcode=1884MinM....6...14L , url-access=subscription {{cite web , title=Native iron , website=MinDat , place=Keswick, VA , publisher=Hudson Institute of Mineralogy , url=http://www.mindat.org/min-2047.html , access-date=2021-12-31 {{cite web , title=Hatrurim formation, Middle East , website=MinDat , place=Keswick, VA , publisher=Hudson Institute of Mineralogy , url=http://www.mindat.org/loc-2063.html , access-date=2021-12-31 {{cite journal , last1=Steenstrup , first1=K.J.V. , author1-link=K. J. V. Steenstrup , date=July 1884 , title= On the Existence of Nickel-Iron with Widmannstätten's Figures in the Basalt of North Greenland , journal=The Mineralogical Magazine and Journal of the Mineralogical Society , volume=6 , issue=27 , pages=1–13 , publisher=Mineralogical Society of Great Britain , url=https://rruff.info/doclib/MinMag/TOC/TOC6/TOC6_27.htm , doi=10.1180/minmag.1884.006.27.01 , bibcode=1884MinM....6....1S , url-access=subscription {{cite web , title=Iron , website=WebMineral , url=http://www.webmineral.com/data/Iron.shtml Metals Ferrous alloys Native element minerals Cubic minerals Minerals in space group 229