The Taconite Breakthrough
After lowgrade iron ore (taconite) is blasted from the ground and broken apart, a gyratory crusher reduces the ore to pieces of about nine inches in diameter and shovels it into 240 ton capacity trucks. (ClevelandCliffs, Inc., Photo) Taconite is named for the Taconic Mountains of upstate New York, and it is essentially a chertlike rock that has 3032 percent iron content. .