Mineral Resources

Earth
Science
Week 4
earth science
digit get it?
13 9
14 9
MIN
ING
15
18
OR
E
13 9 14
5 18 1
MINE
RAL
5 14 22 9 18
15 14 13 5 14
ENVIRON
MENT
19 21 18 61 3
5
SURFACE
Earth
Science
Week 4
mineral resources
Learning objectives
1 2
define the explain the
terminologies advantages and
about the mineral disadvantages of
resources mining
3 4
discuss the ·recognize the
importance of importance of
mining to humans sustainability of
minerals to the
What are mineral resources and what
are the environmental effects of using
them?
• We use a variety of Nonrenewable
Mineral Resources. A mineral resource
is a concentration of one or more
minerals in the Earth’s crust that we
can extract and process into raw
materials and useful products at an
• An ore is a rock that contains a large
enough concentration of a mineral-
often a metal – to make it profitable for
mining and processing. A high-grade
ore contains a high concentration of the
mineral. A low-grade ore contains a low
concentration.
Some Environmental Impacts
of Mineral Use
Every metal product has a life cycle that
includes mining the mineral, processing it,
manufacturing the product, and disposal or
recycling of the product
There Are Several Ways to
Remove Mineral Deposits
Shallow mineral deposits are removed by surface
mining, in which vegetation, soil, and rock overlying
a mineral deposit are cleared away. This waste
material is called overburden and is usually
deposited in piles called spoils. Surface mining is
used to extract about 90% of the nonfuel mineral
resources and 60% of the coal used in the United
Different types of surface mining can be
used, depending on two factors: the
resource being sought and the local
topography.
different types of
surface mining
Open pit
mining
• Machines are used to dig large pits and
remove metal ores containing copper
gold, or other metals, or sand, gravel,
or stone.
STRIP MINING
• Strip mining involves extracting mineral
deposits that lie in large horizontal beds
close to the Earth's surface.
• There are two types of Strip Mining:
Area Strip Mining and Contour Strip
Mining
Area strip
MINING
• used on flat terrain, a gigantic
earthmover strips away the
overburden, and a power shovel-which
can be as tall as a 20-story building-
removes a mineral resource such as
gold. The resulting trench is filled with
overburden, and a new cut is made
Contour strip
mining
• is used mostly to mine coal and
various mineral resources on hilly or
mountainous terrain. Huge power
shovels and bulldozers cut a series of
terraces into the side of a hill.
Mountain top
removal
• explosives are used to remonve the
top of a mountain to expose seams of
coal. This method is commonly used
in the Appalac Mountains of the
United States.
subsurface mining
• in which underground mine resources
are removed through tunnels and
shafts. This method is used to remove
me ores and coal that are too deep to
be extracted surface mining. Miners dig
a deep, vertical shaft blast open
subsurface tunnels and chambers to
Removing Metals from Ores
Has Harmful Environmental
Effects
• Ore extracted by mining typically has
two components: the ore mineral,
containing the desired metal, and waste
material. Removing the waste material
from ores produces tailings - rock
wastes that are left in piles or put into
• After the waste material is removed,
heat or chemical solvents are used to
extract the metals from mineral ores.
Heating ores to release metals is called
smelting. Without effective pollution
control equipment, a smelter emits
large quantities of air pollutants,
including sulfur dioxide and suspended
toxic particles that damage vegetation
HOW LONG WILL SUPPLIES
OF NONRENEWABLE
MINERAL
RESOURCES LAST?
• Supplies of Nonrenewable Mineral Resources Can Be
Economically Depleted. The future supply of any
nonrenewable mineral resource depends on the
actual or potential supply of the mineral and the rate
at which we use it. We have never completely run
out of a nonrenewable mineral resource, but a
• Depletion time is the time it takes to use up a
mineral becomes economically depleted when it
certain proportion-usually 80%-of the reserves of a
costs more than it is worth to find, extract, transport,
mineral at a given rate of use.
and process the remaining.
Mineral Resources Are
Distributed Unevenly
• The Earth's crust contains abundant deposits of
nonrenewable mineral resources such as iron and
aluminum. But concentrated deposits of important
mineral resources such as manganese, chromium,
cobalt, platinum, and rare earth elements are
relatively scarce.
Is Mining Lower-Grade Ores the
Answer?
• Some analysts contend that we can increase
supplies of some minerals by extracting them
from lower-grade ores. They point to the
development of new Earth-moving equipment,
improved techniques for removing impurities
from ores, and other technological advances in
mineral extraction and processing that can make
lower-grade ores accessible, expensive.
Can We Get More Minerals from
the Oceans?
• Most of the minerals found in seawater occur in such
low concentrations that recovering them takes more
energy and money than they are worth. Currently,
only magnesium, bromine, and sodium chloride are
abundant enough to be extracted profitably from
seawater. On the other hand, sediments along the
shallow continental shelf and adjacent shorelines
contain significant deposits of minerals such as
sand, gravel, phosphates, copper, iron, silver,
HOW CAN WE
USE MINERAL
RESOURCES
MORE
SUSTAINABLY?
We Can Find Substitutes for
Some Scarce Mineral Resources
• Some analysts believe that even if supplies
of key minerals become too expensive or too
scarce due to unsustainable use, human
ingenuity will find substitutes. They point to
the current materials revolution in which
silicon and other materials are replacing
some metals for common use.
We Can Recycle and
Reuse Valuable Metals
• One strategy is to focus on recycling and reuse
of nonrenewable mineral resources, especially
valuable or scarce metals such as gold, iron,
copper, aluminum, and platinum. Recycling, an
application of the chemical cycling, has a
much lower environmental impact than that of
mining and processing metals from ores.
We Can Use Mineral
Resources More
Sustainably
• Using mineral resources more sustainably is a
major challenge in the face of rising demand
for many minerals. For example, one way to
increase supplies of rare earths is to extract
and recycle them from the massive amounts of
electronic wastes that are being produced. So
far, however, less than 1% of rare earth metals

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