Hematite

specimen number:
2062297

location:
Homer Mine, Iron Co., Michigan, USA

description:
Choice botryoidal hematite across the top of matrix. Some damage present, still nice for this old locality.

The Homer Mine, located in Iron River within Iron County, Michigan, is a historic underground iron mine situated in the western portion of the Menominee Iron Range. Geologically, the deposit consists of high-grade, secondary hematite and goethite ore hosted within the heavily folded and faulted cherty iron-formations of the Paleoproterozoic Animikie Group. Mineralization occurred where deep-seated weathering and fluid circulation oxidized and enriched the primary iron-rich sedimentary strata, particularly along the troughs of plunging synclinal structures. The mine was opened in 1914 by the Buffalo Iron Mining Company, featuring a deep vertical shaft system designed to extract these tabular ore bodies from beneath the glacial drift. In 1930, operations were taken over by the M. A. Hanna Company, which later integrated the underground workings with the adjacent Cardiff, Minckler, and Wauseca properties to form the unified Homer-Wauseca group. The facility remained a major, highly productive producer of merchantable iron ore through the mid-twentieth century until declining domestic demand and competition from open-pit taconite operations led to the permanent cessation of all mining and pumping activities at the site in 1969.

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