Talk:Bauxite

Sources

Information in this article is based on http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/bauxite/ and on documents linked from there. This is a public domain ressource. -- JeLuF 11:43 Aug 28, 2002 (PDT)

Units

What are the units... Billion tons? What kind of tons (metric/imperial). Can't make sense of this.. ...HE LIKES TO BREAK ERASERS....

Units used on the table are basically kilotonnes (metric system, 1000 x 1000 Kg; 1 tonne = 1000 Kg)... Assuming correct spelling you can tell the difference between tons and tonnes easily.--Staphylococcus 14:25, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Efficiency

What percentage of this ore (Bauxite) eventuall becomes Aluminium?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that 4kg of bauzite is needed to make 1kg of aluminium. Indeed, a quick search here seems to confirm this. (the site says 4.1 tonnes bauxite --> 1 tonne Al) i wouldnt mind finding another source though. —deanos {_p^t_a^a_*^l_g^k_e} 06:09, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

"Bauxite with a penny" picture

This is probably just inconsequential nitpicking, but that's not a penny. Pennies are a denomination of British currency. A better caption would be "Bauxite with a cent." Cent is the actual name for that denomination of American currency. I'm not quite sure why people commonly call it a "penny" when it's not even the same value as a penny.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.254.177.36 (talk) 05:39, 31 July 2006

Or perhaps US penny. It's called a penny in the US and has a value of $0.01. Please, the British don't own the English language, 'nuff said - cheers, Vsmith 12:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

More to our inconsequential British nitpicker: Americans call the penny a penny because the Brits first introduced that currency before they were sent packing. Americans also use the word dollar (from German Taler), but I don't hear the Germans claim they own that word.

His point if that penny is not an official term for $0.01 USD, where it is for £0.01 GBP

"a common but unofficial name for the one-cent coin in the United States and in Canada, worth 1/100 of the dollar: see penny (U.S. coin), penny (Canadian coin). This word is not used by the United States Mint or the Royal Canadian Mint; they use cent." - penny

by using the term penny you are introducing ambiguity into wikipedia. --82.17.173.132 (talk) 18:40, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

http://www.mickstephenson.eu/enano/index.php/Special:DownloadFile/BauxiteUSGOVpath.jpg A penny is 20.32mm and a cent is 19.05mm given this if you were to work out the length of the line on this image based on the diameter of a cent you would get 92.72mm whereas a penny would give you the incorrect figure of 98.9mm, which is a difference of 6.18mm which is HARDLY nitpicking! this is obviously unnacceptable, i am taking the liberty of changing the caption myself --82.17.173.132 (talk) 22:06, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

This has to be the lamest edit war, like... ever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lumberjake (talk • contribs) 18:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

World Production and Reserves

I find this chart much more helpful than the article. I learn from it that Australia is by far the world's biggest producer. I also learn that the world supply it virtually unlimited while the actual use of the material is infinitesimal by comparison. The article reveals none of these facts.--dunnhaupt 18:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess the production is limited by the amount of energy it takes. The article does not mention that (or any other cause) either. 130.89.228.82 21:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciaton?

How does one pronounce bauxite? Is the 'x' silent, like it would be in French? dq 14:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The 'x' is pronounced either as 'ks' or as a 'z'. Some dictionaries don't even mention the 'z' pronunciation though. I guess 'ks' is more common. 130.89.228.82 21:45, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

So you're saying it's most of the time pronounced "bow-ksite"? Weird. I thought since the word has a French basis it would be silent. dq 02:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

its generally, at least in the UK pronounced bork-site --82.17.173.132 (talk) 18:42, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

i dont understand bauxite, it makes no sense waht so ever to me. thats all folks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.166.219.8 (talk) 19:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Meriam-Webster provides an audio pronunciation of bauxite here. Sounds like "box-site" to me, although I learned to say "bawk-site" in several different geology courses (in the U.S.). Tim Ross (talk) 15:51, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I've heard it pronounced both ways, the English-based "box-ite" (or perhaps "bawks-zite") and the French-based "bow-zite". Though the French version makes more sense (the name is based on the VERY COOL French town of Les Baux, "Leh Bow"), the English version seems to be prevalent. Dlchambers (talk) 14:03, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Bauxite classification and reserves

Bauxites are aluminium-rich laterites which are residual rocks belonging to the sedimentary rock group. In geoscience they are not classified as soils and pedological terms as alcrete are useless in geology and only confusing. With respect to reserves and production of bauxites we should rely on the new data of U.S.G.S. and not cite hypothetic speculations on their life-span. For interested geoscientists I wrote a summary on laterites and lateritic ores under www.laterite.de --Schellat (talk) 11:37, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Cryolite?

The Cryolite article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryolite) says that Cryolite has been mostly exhausted, and thus other chemicals are now used as a flux. I think the article should reflect this but I'm no expert on which is right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.3.62.254 (talk) 16:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

aluminium vs. aluminum

Almost all readers of this article are aware that aluminium and aluminum are the same thing. The former is used in British (and Australian?) English and the latter in Canadian and American. I just noticed a recent change whereby several uses of "aluminum" were changed to "aluminium", and researched the history of the article a bit, finding that it was initiated with the "um" spelling, but was converted to "ium" about a year later.

According to WP:ENGVAR, unless an article has a strong logical tie to some particular language version (for example, The Statue of Liberty or Manchester United), the version of English used in an article should be maintained. If we wish to follow the rules, I think we should be using aluminum. Tim Ross (talk) 11:20, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

But see WP:ALUM. For aluminium, caesium, and sulfur, the consensus is to use the IUPAC spelling. --Itub (talk) 09:23, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, of course, that makes very good sense. Thanks for pointing that out. Tim Ross (talk) 10:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Bauxite

What is the difference between Gibbsitic Bauxite & Boehmitic Bauxite & Diasporic Bauxite? (115.241.160.105 (talk) 05:59, 24 March 2009 (UTC))

The mineral composition differs: Boehmite Gibbsite Diaspore are the main minerals in that types of bauxite and give name to it.--Stone (talk) 11:08, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Tech Talk

I generally love Wikipedia. But this piece is an example of a handful of articles that fall short of helpful. I begins as if talking to an experienced mineralogist, with technical jargon, rather than a short paragraph for the layman. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.247.34.238 (talk) 15:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Melting Bauxite

A little research reveals that bauxite melts at 2000 degrees celcius. Aluminum melts at around 1220 celcius. What makes bauxite so hard to melt? —Preceding unsigned comment added by M00npirate (talk • contribs) 23:47, 11 February 2010 (UTC)