Cinnabar is a major ore for the production of Mercury. Historically, it has been mined as far back as early Roman times, for mercury. Cinnabar contains as much as 86% Mercury. Mercury is the only common metal that is liquid at room temperature. It occurs either as native metal or in cinnabar, corderoite, livingstonite, and other minerals. Mercury has uniform volumetric thermal expansion, good electrical conductivity, and easily forms amalgams with almost all common metals except iron. Most mercury is used for the manufacture of industrial chemicals and for electrical and electronic applications.* *Source - USGS Mercury Production Cinnabar, a Mercury Sulfide, is the principal mineral of mercury. These minerals occur in veins, wide dissemination of irregular, sporadic mineralization without any pattern. Mercury is easy to recover from Cinnabar. Ore is crushed to typically 1" to 2" in size then sent to a kiln. Simply heating the ore in a kiln to 1,100 Deg. F, all of the mercury will vaporize into the kiln (mercury vaporizes at 675 deg F). The kiln vapors then must be condensed, by cooling, to recover the mercury, which becomes liquid at temperatures below 675 deg F and freezes solid at 2.8 Deg. F. Some free mercury in the ore can be recovered on Deister wet gravity concentration tables, also. Typical minerals found with cinnabar include silica, calcite, pyrite, marcasite and bitumen. These minerals often comprise the waste material in a mercury mine.