[blam]

Bringing Mars Into The Iron Age

"If you look at the soil composition of Mars, the one thing that really strikes you is that it's 5 to 14 percent iron oxide," said Dr. Peter Curreri, a materials scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "It's almost ore-grade material."

[John H K]

The second landing site was chosen primarly because it's got huge amounts of Hematite (Iron Ore) that may have been precipitated from water, the same way Earth's iron ore is.

[asb3pe]

Excellent article, blam - thanks for passing that along!