Cinnabar covered with bright red powder made from cinnabar. The most popularly known use of cinnabar is in Chinese carved lacquerware, a technique that apparently originated in the Song dynasty. The danger of mercury poisoning may be reduced in ancient lacquerware by entraining the powdered pigment in lacquer, but could still pose an environmental hazard if the pieces were accidentally destroyed. In the modern jewelry industry, the toxic pigment is replaced by a resin-based polymer that approximates the appearance of pigmented lacquer. Two female mummies dated A.D. 1399 to 1475 found in Cerro Esmeralda in Chile in 1976 had clothes colored
Lateritic nickel ore deposits the weathering mantle developed above ultramafic rocks. As such they tend to be tabular, flat and really large, covering many square kilometres of the Earth's surface. However, at any one time the area of a deposit being worked for the nickel ore is much smaller, usually only a few hectares. The typical nickel laterite mine often operates as either an open cut mine or a strip mine. Nickel laterites are a very important type of nickel ore deposit. They are growing to become the most important source of nickel metal for world demand (currently second to sulfide nickel ore deposits).