@Big Ken posted:I can tell you working in an Open Hearth Furnace in Youngstown Ohio, the iron ore is a dark brown, almost black in color. I worked the narrow gauge an never payed attention to the cars that it was brought in on. The loaded into the charging boxes to be loaded into the furnaces.
Depends where it's from, what variety and how it's processed. Raw ore from my neck of the woods is either red-orange in color or shiny metallic black. Taconite is dark grey when it first comes out of the mill, turning reddish when it is stockpiled and oxidizes. Most ore nowadays is pelletized into taconite.
