: First, a question...

: Does Tintanium, in it's metallic form, tarnish, rust or anything similar in exposure to air or water?

No. The process you are refering to is called oxidization and it does occur to all metals, but some are more resistent to the process then others. Gold, titanium, aluminum, chromium and vandium are all metals that are highly resist to the process. Titanium is relatively inert and therefor doesn't react like iron or silver to oxygen. As such it can be used to replace bones and cartilege. Also it has been used on spacefaring vessels and tank linings for food production. It is an amazingly safe metal as far as being non-reactive.

: Is it thinkable that Titanium could occur in a pure form naturally. If so, this could well have been the case in Moria, so saving the Dwarves from going through all the steps you describe. Possibly it could occur in small grains similar to silver or gold which can be extracted by washing?

Most ores have to be processed and refined to be of any use, no matter what they are. Because gold is even more inert then almost every other element it can be found in large quantities that can use placer or wash mining to extract. Silver usually occurs around gold deposits and vice versa so the same process can be used. But the process only works because gold and silver are relatively heavy. (Titanium is not nearly as heavy as gold or silver which makes it a good candidate to be mithril). However, the majority of gold and silver that have been recovered required a rather complex process that has been improved over the years. The most common goldmining technique currently in use is cyanide heap leaching.

However, I wouldn't think it entirely impossible for a vein of titanium to exist. I would think it unlikely because the relative gravity of titanium is such that it would easily mix with other minerals and would most likely be found with other minerals. Whereas gold and silver have a fairly heavy relative gravity and thus would be more likely to fall to the bottom and form a vein.

: The process, as you decribe it, does sound a little complex for dwarves to have mastered it so long ago, but let's just suppose they were able to perform all these steps. The question that arises is, how did they discover that. Apart from making fireworks, we have little evidence of Dwarves having great mastery over Chemistry. I imagine, that if they did master this process, they did not discover it themselves but were taught it (maybe by Aule, who did teach them a lot of things about workling metal). As they performed the process as they had learnt it without really understanding it, they were unable to improve or adapt it in any way, and could possible work with only one particular grade or type of ore which only occurred in Moria.

: is that anywhere near plausible?

I wouldn't put anything past Aule. There are too many unknowns regarding the harvest and porcessing of mithril from Khazad Dum. However, complex mining technique that we have developed required only from around the 1600 to 1700's to evolve. The dwarves had well over 6,000 years to evolve their mining and quarrying techniques. I agree that their chemistry doesn't seem that advanced from the knoweldge that we have, but then some of the chemical knowledge that the greeks and the egyptians had took centuries for us to rediscover. Sometimes the ancients aren't as ancient as we suspect.

-RR