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Bauxite


Bauxite, an aluminium ore, is the world's main source of aluminium. It consists mostly of the minerals gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)) and diaspore (α-AlO(OH)), mixed with the two iron oxides goethite and haematite, the clay mineral kaolinite and small amounts of anatase (TiO2) and ilmenite (FeTiO3 or FeO.TiO2). In 1821 the French geologist Pierre Berthier discovered bauxite near the village of Les Baux in Provence, southern France. In 1861, French chemist Henri Sainte-Claire Deville named the mineral "bauxite".

Lateritic bauxites (silicate bauxites) are distinguished from karst bauxite ores (carbonate bauxites). The carbonate bauxites occur predominantly in Europe and Jamaica above carbonate rocks (limestone and dolomite), where they were formed by lateritic weathering and residual accumulation of intercalated clay layers – dispersed clays which were concentrated as the enclosing limestones gradually dissolved during chemical weathering.


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