the.com/cassiterite
the dull brown pebble that armed the Bronze Age and now lives in your phone
means Cassiterite is the brownish mineral tin dioxide (SnO2), the chief natural ore from which tin is extracted.
from From the Greek 'kassiteros,' meaning tin — the same root behind the Cassiterides, the legendary 'Tin Islands' that ancient writers placed somewhere off the western edge of the known world, possibly Britain or northwestern Iberia, where traders sourced the metal. The mineral name itself was formalized by 19th-century mineralogists, who reached back to that old Greek word for tin to christen the stone that yields it.
- tin source
- Primary ore for nearly all the world's tin
- heavy hitter
- So dense it pools in stream gravel
- twin trick
- Forms elbow-shaped twin crystals called visor tin
- conflict mineral
- Mined in war zones for electronics solder
- ancient trade
- Drove Phoenician voyages to tin-rich Cornwall
cornish tin mines — cornwall, england produced 90% of world's tin for centuries until closing in 1998
bolivian tin belt — potosí region, bolivia; cerro rico mountain yielded vast cassiterite deposits from 1545 onwards
malaysian tin deposits — perak and selangor states produced 40% of world tin in early 1900s from cassiterite ore