Reading Red Mountain

Red Mountain contains a seam of red iron ore known as the Big Seam, visible here as an outcrop, that extends to Gadsden sixty miles to the northeast and to Hoover to the south, where it lies a mile underground. This seam was formed more than 400 million years ago during the Silurian Period and, since 1870, has yielded an estimated 300 million tons of ore. Because of its essential role in Alabama's iron and steel industry, red iron ore, or hematite, became the official state mineral. Red Mountain's rock layers once lay flat, but about 280 million years ago collisions between the modern-day continents of North America and Africa compressed them into steeply tilted anticlines. Over millions of years, erosion created Jones Valley and exposed rich beds of iron.

Birmingham, Alabama · United States