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Banded Iron Formation

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Astrobiology

Synonyms

BIF; Itabirite; Taconite

Definition

A lithological term applied to a thinly bedded or laminated chemical sedimentary rock consisting of successive layers of fine-grained quartz, iron oxides, carbonates, and/or silicates, typically containing 20–40 % iron and 40–50 % silica (James 1954; Trendall 2002; Klein 2005) (Fig. 1).

Banded Iron Formation, Fig. 1
figure 31 figure 31

(a) Outcrop photograph of Algoma-type BIF with layers of magnetite BIF interbedded with felsic volcaniclastic rocks from the 2.9 Ga Itilliarsuk BIF, West Greenland. (b) Outcrop photograph of weakly folded magnetite-quartz BIF from the 2.85 Ga Central Slave Cover Group, Slave Craton, Northwest Territories, Canada. Brownish bands are secondary iron oxides and iron oxyhydroxides. (c) A pristine BIF core sample from the Joffre Member, Brockman Iron Formation, Hamersley Province, West Australia. Black mesobands are composed mostly of dense magnetite, red micro- and mesobands are composed of chert + hematite, and gray micro- and...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, T6G 2E3, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    A. M. Mloszewska, Rasmus Nielsen Haugaard, Ernesto Pecoits & Kurt O. Konhauser

Authors
  1. A. M. Mloszewska
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  2. Rasmus Nielsen Haugaard
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  3. Ernesto Pecoits
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  4. Kurt O. Konhauser
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. M. Mloszewska .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS-Universite de Bordeaux, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, Floirac, France

    Muriel Gargaud

  2. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

    William M. Irvine

  3. Departamento de Biologia Molecular, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Ricardo Amils

  4. Earth–Life Science Institute (ELSI), Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro–ku, Tokyo, Japan

    Henderson James (Jim) Cleaves II

  5. GEOTOP Research Center for Geochemistry and Geodynamics, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Daniele L. Pinti

  6. Department of Astrophysics, Laboratory of Molecular Astrophysics, Iorrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain

    José Cernicharo Quintanilla

  7. LESIA, Observatoire Paris-Site de Meudon, Meudon, France

    Daniel Rouan

  8. Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institut für Planetenforschung, Berlin, Germany

    Tilman Spohn

  9. Centre François Viéte d'Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques EA 1161, Faculté des Sciences et des, Techniques de Nantes, Nantes, France

    Stéphane Tirard

  10. CNES/DSP/SME, Vétérinaire/DVM, Astro/Exobiology, Paris Cedex 1, France

    Michel Viso

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Mloszewska, A.M., Haugaard, R.N., Pecoits, E., Konhauser, K.O. (2015). Banded Iron Formation. In: Gargaud, M., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44185-5_147

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