How tungsten ore is mined

Scheelite, one of tungsten's two main ores, glows bright blue under ultraviolet light.

stations: 4
things downstream: 6

The short version

Tungsten ore is sorted mainly by weight. Wolframite and scheelite sit in deposits around granite, reached by open pits in Australia and Canada but usually by underground mines elsewhere. Mills crush the rock and let gravity separation pull out the dense tungsten minerals. Scheelite ground very fine goes to flotation, and leaching, roasting or magnets can clean up what remains.

Work the quartz veins

Wolframite forms in quartz veins and pegmatites near granite. China's high-grade veins outcrop in many separate places and suit small operations, while most mines elsewhere must go underground.
Crush the vein rock

Crushing is the first step in beneficiation, breaking the rock so the dark, heavy tungsten minerals come loose.
Sort by weight

Gravity concentration lets the dense tungsten minerals part from lighter waste. This is the standard treatment for tungsten ores.
Float the fine scheelite

Scheelite that must be ground fine to free it goes to flotation. Leaching, roasting, magnets or high-tension separators are added when the concentrate needs more cleaning, and it then moves on to a chemical plant.

End of the lineTungsten ore Next it goes into tungsten.

Worth repeating

No metal melts at a higher temperature than tungsten, at 3,422 °C.
Wolframite takes its name from an old German word for tungsten, wolf rahm, which Agricola rendered in Latin as wolf's froth.
Chemists identified tungsten as its own element in 1781 and first isolated the metal in 1783.