Looooodestone

Wait, not him, I'm talking about natural magnetic rocks here. And, yes, I know that his name is Lonestar. Anyway, I came across a page from a certain Dr. Stern from phys6.org who has a great little page set up about the origins of magnetism in certain iron ores.

We've probably all seen the natural magnets that you can buy from pretty much anywhere. They're called hematite, and they're a form of iron ore. However, lodestones are like the "raspberry" jam in the natural magnetism scene. They are much stronger, and carry a unique crystalline structure not found in hematite. Once thought to have come from lengthy exposure to the earth's magnetic field, new research suggests that their origin might be much more exciting. But first, story time...

A group of monks in Rimini, Italy (quite a long time ago, I'm sure) had an iron piece that supported a brick formation on their monestary in need of repair. Years of weight and wind had distorted the iron. The monks sent it to a blacksmith to have it fixed, but the blacksmith (appropriately named Maestro) found that it had become magnetic.

At the time, they had no idea what had happened, and attributed the magnetization on the piece being exposed to the natural magnetic polarity of the earth. Now, research has shown that lodestones can be created (and probably only can be created) by lightning striking a formation of iron ore. I am no scientist, but the potency of the lodestone in relation to normal magnets sounds like an extremely powerful force such as a lightning strike would have something to do with it. But, more on that later.

Read.