Minerals from the iron ore of Isola Elba, Italy

    Isola Elba is a very well known place ! great land, great people and a lot of mineral ! Elba is the homeland of Elbaite (tourmaline family) but from an hystorical point of view Elba was the most famous place from where iron was digged. Yes, first the Etruschians and later the Romans worked a lot of iron mines here and exported iron all over the known world starting various centuries before Christ. A lon story ! nowadays the mines are still there, closed. It is no more economically convenient to work them but the minerals ... are still available ! the area has been partly re-organized as a Mineralogical Park. Vist their website at http://www.parcominelba.it

    What you find here are some of the iron derived minerals we got in these last years, also from old collections ! 

    In case you might want to reach Isola Elba and search some rocks, you might need a place to stay, so visit this link, ABviaggi are nice people that might help you.

To see a lot of specimens just click the number of the page:

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ITA-C119 HEMATITE and QUARTZ BACINO MINE, RIO MARINA, ISOLA ELBA, ITALY - Blocky hematite with a lot of hematite crystals dispersed all around and inside some cavities together with some amethystine quartz ! Typical from this locality. Overall size is 5x5x5.5 cm. € 10

ITA-C120 HEMATITE and QUARTZ BACINO MINE, RIO MARINA, ISOLA ELBA, ITALY - Great specimen with several large crystals. The cluster on the top is composed by 3 centimetric damage-free hematite crystals. All around there are at least 3 dozens crystals up to 1 cm ! Showy specimen of 6x6x5 cm. € 30

ITA-C121 HEMATITE and QUARTZ BACINO MINE, RIO MARINA, ISOLA ELBA, ITALY - Blocky hematite specimen with a lot of hematite crystals all around ! There are also some light pink quartz crystals up to 1 cm. The hemaite crystals are up to 0.5-0.6 cm. Overall size is 7.5x8x4 cm. € 10