Cassiterite in the context of "Tin dioxide"

The European Bronze Age is characterized by bronze artifacts and the use of bronze implements. The regional Bronze Age succeeds the Neolithic and Copper Age and is followed by the Iron Age. It starts with the Aegean Bronze Age in 3200 BC and spans the entire 2nd millennium BC (including the Únětice culture, Ottomány culture, British Bronze Age, Argaric culture, Nordic Bronze Age, Tumulus culture, Nuragic culture, Terramare culture, Urnfield culture and Lusatian culture), lasting until c. 800 BC in central Europe.

Arsenical bronze was produced in some areas from the 4th millennium BC onwards, prior to the introduction of tin bronze. Tin bronze foil had already been produced in southeastern Europe on a small scale in the Chalcolithic era, with examples from Pločnik in Serbia dated to c. 4650 BC, as well as 14 other artefacts from Bulgaria and Serbia dated to before 4000 BC, showing that early tin bronze developed independently in Europe 1500 years before the first tin bronze alloys in the Near East. This bronze production lasted for c. 500 years in the Balkans but disappeared at the end of the 5th millennium, coinciding with the "collapse of large cultural complexes in north-eastern Bulgaria and Thrace in the late fifth millennium BC". Tin bronzes using cassiterite tin were subsequently reintroduced to the area some 1500 years later.

Tin is a chemical element; it has the symbol Sn (from Latin stannum) and atomic number 50. A metallic-gray metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the so-called "tin cry", as a result of twinning in tin crystals.

Tin is a post-transition metal in group 14 of the periodic table of elements. It is obtained chiefly from the mineral cassiterite, which contains stannic oxide, SnO
₂. Tin shows a chemical similarity to both of its neighbors in group 14, germanium and lead, and has two main oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4. Tin is the 49th most abundant element on Earth, making up 0.00022% of its crust, and with 10 stable isotopes, it has the largest number of stable isotopes in the periodic table, due to its magic number of protons.

Tin(IV) oxide, also known as stannic oxide, is the inorganic compound with the formula SnO₂. The mineral form of SnO₂ is called cassiterite, and this is the main ore of tin. With many other names, this oxide of tin is an important material in tin chemistry. It is a colourless, diamagnetic, amphoteric solid.

Wolframite is an iron, manganese, and tungstate mineral with a chemical formula of (Fe,Mn)WO₄ that is the intermediate mineral between ferberite (Fe rich) and hübnerite (Mn rich). Along with scheelite, the wolframite series are the most important tungsten ore minerals. Wolframite is found in quartz veins and pegmatites associated with granitic intrusives. Associated minerals include cassiterite, scheelite, bismuth, quartz, pyrite, galena, sphalerite, and arsenopyrite.

This mineral was historically found in Europe in Bohemia, Saxony, and in the UK in Devon and Cornwall. China reportedly has the world's largest supply of tungsten ore with about 60%. Other producers are Spain, Canada, Portugal, Russia, Australia, Thailand, South Korea, Rwanda, Bolivia, the United States, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Gangue (/ɡæŋ/) is the commercially worthless material that surrounds, or is closely mixed with, a wanted mineral in an ore deposit. It is thus distinct from overburden, which is the waste rock or materials overlying an ore or mineral body that is displaced during mining without being processed.

The separation of valuable mineral from gangue minerals is known as mineral processing, mineral dressing, or ore dressing. It is a necessary, and often significant, aspect of mining. It can be a complicated process, depending on the nature of the minerals involved. For example, galena, an ore of lead, is usually found in large pieces within its gangue, so it does not normally need extensive processing to remove it; but cassiterite, the chief ore mineral of tin, is usually disseminated as very small crystals throughout its gangue, so when it is mined from hard rock, the ore-bearing rock first needs to be crushed very finely, and then has to be subjected to sophisticated processes to separate the ore.

Walikale Territory is a territory situated in North Kivu Province, within the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo). Its administrative headquarters are located in the town of Walikale, which lies along Democratic Republic of the Congo National Road No. 3 between Bukavu and Lubutu (Maniema Province). The territory occupies the Lowa River valley and is positioned approximately 135 km west of Goma.

Walikale is renowned for its cassiterite deposits, a mineral refined into tin. As of 2008, control over these resources was heavily contested due to the Kivu conflict, with warlords and armed factions dominating extraction activities. The Bisie mine, one of the territory’s largest cassiterite sources, was under the authority of the renegade 85th Brigade of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC), commanded by Colonel Samy Matumo, until early 2009. That year, the mine transitioned to oversight by FARDC units undergoing "accelerated integration," a government-led initiative to absorb former rebel forces into the national army.