Aluminium | Geoscience Australia
Formation. Bauxite is the most common aluminium ore. Bauxite occurs as a weathered cover or blanket, known as laterite or duricrust, over a variety of aluminabearing rocks. ... In almost all commercial operations, alumina is extracted from the bauxite by the Bayer refining process. The process, discovered by Karl Josef Bayer in 1888, consists ...