page_title: Iron mining in the United States
section_title: History of US iron ore mining
hierarchical_section_title: Iron mining in the United States / History of US iron ore mining
caption_attribution_description: English: Graph of useable iron ore mined in the United States 1890-2014, data from USGS website: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/iron_ore/
context_page_description: Iron mining in the United States produced 42.5 million metric tons of iron ore in 2015, worth US$3.8 billion. Iron ore was the third-highest-value metal mined in the United States, after gold and copper. Iron ore was mined from nine active mines and three reclamation operations in Michigan, Minnesota, and Utah. Most of the iron ore was mined in northern Minnesota's Mesabi Range. Net exports were 3.9 million tons. US iron ore made up 2.5 percent of the total mined worldwide in 2015. Employment as of 2014 was 5,750 in iron mines and iron ore treatment plants.
  US iron ore mining is dominated by the Precambrian banded iron formation deposits around Lake Superior, in Minnesota and Michigan; such deposits were also formerly mined in Wisconsin. For the past 50 years, more than 90 percent of US iron ore production has been mined from the Lake Superior deposits. None of the iron ore now mined in the US is “direct shipping” ore ready to be fed into the iron- and steel-making process. The ore is concentrated to raise the iron content before use. All the iron ore currently mined is from open pits.
context_section_description: In common with other commodities, the history of iron mining in the United States includes a shift to larger but lower-grade ore deposits, a shift from underground to open-pit mining, and a shift from labor-intensive mining to highly mechanized mining.
  Although in 2014, the US mined only 1.8 percent of all iron ore mined worldwide, the US was previously a much larger factor in the world iron ore market. From 1937 through 1953, US iron ore made up more than a third of the world's iron ore production; the proportion of world iron ore mined in the US peaked in 1945 at 56 percent.
caption: Graph of usable iron ore mined in the United States 1890–2014, data from USGS
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