essay about mineral resources

• General Principles and Processes of Isolation of Elements

Mineral Resources

What are mineral resources.

A mineral is a naturally occurring substance, representable by a chemical formula, that is usually solid and inorganic, and has a crystal structure.

Table of Contents

Recommended videos, categories of mineral resources, uses of minerals, examples of minerals, conservation of mineral resources.

• Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

Mineral resources are the key material basis for socio-economic development. Statistical results show that more than 95% of energy used by mankind, 80% of industrial raw materials and 70% of raw materials for agricultural production are from mineral resources.

A mineral is a pure inorganic substance that occurs naturally in the earth’s crust. More than two-thousand minerals have been identified and most of these are inorganic, which are formed by the various combination of elements. However, a small proportion of the earth’s crust contains organic materials, consisting of single elements such as gold, silver, diamond, and sulfur.

Also, Read ⇒   Geochemistry

Mineral resources can be divided into two major categories.

• Metallic Mineral Resources
• Non-metallic Mineral Resources

There are metals that are hard and conduct electricity and heat with characteristics of lustre or shine. Such metals are called metallic minerals. For example Silver, Chromium, Tin, Nickel, Copper, Iron, Lead, Aluminum, Gold, and Zinc.

1. Characteristics of Metallic Minerals

• Metallic Minerals show a metallic shine in their appearance.
• The potential source of the metal can be got through mining.
• Contains metals in their chemical composition.
• Metallic minerals contain metal in raw form.

Classification of metallic minerals:

• Ferrous metallic minerals
• Nonferrous metallic minerals

Minerals that contain iron are called ferrous minerals . Example of ferrous minerals is Chromites, Iron ore, and manganese.

Minerals that do not contain iron are called  non-ferrous minerals . Examples of nonferrous minerals are lead, silver, gold, and copper.

There is a group of chemical elements that when melted do not generate a new product. Such special groups are called Nonmetallic minerals. Example: Dimension stone, halite, sand, gypsum, uranium metal , gravel.

2. Characteristics of Nonmetallic Mineral Resources

• Minerals appear with a non-metallic shine or lustre
• Do not contain extractable metals in their chemical composition

The use of minerals depends upon their deposits. Some countries are rich in mineral deposits, while others have no deposits. The greatest use of minerals depends on their properties. For instance, Aluminum is light, strong and durable in nature, so it is used for aircraft, shipping, and car industries.

Minerals are used in almost all industries. Gold, silver, and platinum metal are used in the jewellery industry. Copper is used in the coin industry and for making pipes and wires. Silicon obtained from quartz is used in the computer industry.

Mineral elements give fireworks colour. Barium produces glossy greens; strontium yields dark reds; copper yields blues; and zinc yields sodium. Mixing elements can make many colours: strontium and sodium create bright orange; titanium, zirconium, and magnesium alloys create silvery white; copper and strontium make lavender blue.

Minerals are compounds naturally produced on Earth. They have a clear structure and chemical composition. There are more than 3000 known minerals. Some, like gold and diamond, are rare and precious, while others, like quartz, are more ordinary.

Minerals are composed of atoms as are all compounds. There are just only a hundred components around us, and they are the fundamental building blocks in everything of us. They can be found in their pure form, or chemically combined with other compound-making elements. A compound is composed of two or more chemically united elements.

Over 99 per cent of the minerals that make up the surface of the Earth consists of only eight elements. Some of such elements are found as complexes in conjunction with other elements. Minerals are naturally occurring elements or compounds in the Earth’s crust. Rocks are minerally shaped mixtures. Much as the building blocks of rocks are elements, the rocks form the rock building blocks.

The mineral biotite has basal cleavage which means that it has a complete cleavage. The cleavage plane on top of this sample is visible on the smooth, reflective surface. The flat surface at the bottom, in line with the top of the bowl, is similar to the rim and thus reflects the same cleavage axis.

The total volume of consumable mineral resources is just 1% of all the minerals present in the earth’s crust. However, the consumption rate is so high that these mineral resources which are non-renewable will get exhausted very soon. Here are some measures to conserve minerals:

• Use of minerals in a planned and sustainable manner.
• Recycling of metals
• Use of alternative renewable substitutes.
• Technology should be improved to use the low-grade ores profitably.

Frequently Asked Questions – FAQs

What is the importance of mineral resources.

Mineral resources are among the most important natural resources that determine a country’s industrial and economic growth by supplying raw materials to the economy’s primary, secondary and tertiary sectors.

What are the uses of minerals?

Calcium provides bones and teeth with stability and endurance. It also aids in blood coagulation, enzyme regulation, nervous system processing of signals, etc. In transporting oxygen from the lungs to other parts of the body, iron is needed.

How minerals are found?

Minerals can be found all over the world in the crust of the earth, but generally in such small quantities that they are not worth extracting. Minerals are found in economically viable deposits only with the aid of certain geological processes. Just where they are located will mineral deposits be collected.

What defines a mineral?

A mineral is an inorganic solid which occurs naturally, with certain chemical composition and an ordered atomic arrangement. This may sound a bit mouthful, but it becomes clearer if you break it down. There are minerals that occur naturally. They’re not made by people.

What are the characteristics of minerals?

Minerals are identified with eight main properties: crystal habit, lustre, hardness, cleavage, break, colour, line, and specific gravity. There is usually no specific diagnostic property that can be used to classify a mineral sample on its own.

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Physical Resources: Water, Pollution, and Minerals

Mineral resources: formation, mining, environmental impact, learning objectives.

In this module, the following topics will be covered: 1) the importance of minerals to society; 2) the factors that control availability of mineral resources, 3) the future world mineral supply and demand; 4) the environmental impact of mining and processing of minerals; 5) solutions to the crisis involving mineral supply.

After reading this module, students should be able to

• know the importance of minerals to society
• know factors that control availability of mineral resources
• know why future world mineral supply and demand is an important issue
• understand the environmental impact of mining and processing of minerals
• understand how we can work toward solving the crisis involving mineral supply

Importance of Minerals

Mineral resources are essential to our modern industrial society and they are used everywhere. For example, at breakfast you drink some juice in a glass (made from melted quartz sand), eat from a ceramic plate (created from clay minerals heated at high temperatures), sprinkle salt (halite) on your eggs, use steel utensils (from iron ore and other minerals), read a magazine (coated with up to 50% kaolinite clay to give the glossy look), and answer your cellphone (containing over 40 different minerals including copper, silver, gold, and platinum). We need minerals to make cars, computers, appliances, concrete roads, houses, tractors, fertilizer, electrical transmission lines, and jewelry. Without mineral resources, industry would collapse and living standards would plummet. In 2010, the average person in the U.S. consumed more than16,000 pounds of mineral resources 1 (see Table Per Capita Consumption of Minerals ). With an average life expectancy of 78 years, that translates to about1.3 million pounds of mineral resources over such a person’s lifetime. Here are a few statistics that help to explain these large values of mineral use: an average American house contains about 250,000 pounds of minerals (see Figure Mineral Use in the Kitchen for examples of mineral use in the kitchen), one mile of Interstate highway uses 170 million pounds of earth materials, and the U.S. has nearly 4 million miles of roads. All of these mineral resources are nonrenewable, because nature usually takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years to produce mineral deposits. Early hominids used rocks as simple tools as early as 2.6 million years ago. At least 500,000 years ago prehistoric people used flint (fine-grained quartz) for knives and arrowheads. Other important early uses of minerals include mineral pigments such as manganese oxides and iron oxides for art, salt for food preservation, stone for pyramids, and metals such as bronze (typically tin and copper), which is stronger than pure copper and iron for steel, which is stronger than bronze.

Mineral Resource Principles

A geologist defines a mineral as a naturally occurring inorganic solid with a defined chemical composition and crystal structure (regular arrangement of atoms). Minerals are the ingredients of rock , which is a solid coherent (i.e., will not fall apart) piece of planet Earth. There are three classes of rock, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. Igneous rocks form by cooling and solidification of hot molten rock called lava or magma. Lava solidifies at the surface after it is ejected by a volcano, and magma cools underground. Sedimentary rocks form by hardening of layers of sediment (loose grains such as sand or mud) deposited at Earth’s surface or by mineral precipitation, i.e., formation of minerals in water from dissolved mineral matter. Metamorphic rocks form when the shape or type of minerals in a preexisting rock changes due to intense heat and pressure deep within the Earth. Ore is rock with an enrichment of minerals that can be mined for profit. Sometimes ore deposits (locations with abundant ore) can be beautiful, such as the giant gypsum crystals at the amazing Cave of the Crystals in Mexico (see Figure Giant Gypsum Crystals ). The enrichment factor , which is the ratio of the metal concentration needed for an economic ore deposit over the average abundance of that metal in Earth’s crust, is listed for several important metals in the Table Enrichment Factor . Mining of some metals, such as aluminum and iron, is profitable at relatively small concentration factors, whereas for others, such as lead and mercury, it is profitable only at very large concentration factors. The metal concentration in ore (column 3 in Table Enrichment Factor ) can also be expressed in terms of the proportion of metal and waste rock produced after processing one metric ton (1,000 kg) of ore. Iron is at one extreme, with up to 690 kg of Fe metal and only 310 kg of waste rock produced from pure iron ore, and gold is at the other extreme with only one gram (.03 troy oz) of Au metal and 999.999 kg of waste rock produced from gold ore.

Giant Gypsum Crystals Giant gypsum crystals in the Cave of Crystals in Naica, Mexico. There are crystals up to 11 m long in this cave, which is located about 1 km underground. Source: National Geographic via Wikipedia

Formation of Ore Deposits

Ore deposits form when minerals are concentrated—sometimes by a factor of many thousands—in rock, usually by one of six major processes. These include the following: (a) igneous crystallization , where molten rock cools to form igneous rock. This process forms building stone such as granite, a variety of gemstones, sulfur ore, and metallic ores, which involve dense chromium or platinum minerals that sink to the bottom of liquid magma. Diamonds form in rare Mg-rich igneous rock called kimberlite that originates as molten rock at 150–200 km depth (where the diamonds form) and later moves very quickly to the surface, where it erupts explosively. The cooled magma forms a narrow, carrot-shaped feature called a pipe. Diamond mines in kimberlite pipes can be relatively narrow but deep (see Figure A Diamond Mine ). (b) Hydrothermal is the most common ore-forming process. It involves hot, salty water that dissolves metallic elements from a large area and then precipitates ore minerals in a smaller area, commonly along rock fractures and faults. Molten rock commonly provides the heat and the water is from groundwater, the ocean, or the magma itself. The ore minerals usually contain sulfide (S 2- ) bonded to metals such as copper, lead, zinc, mercury, and silver. Actively forming hydrothermal ore deposits occur at undersea mountain ranges, called oceanic ridges, where new ocean crust is produced. Here, mineral-rich waters up to 350°C sometimes discharge from cracks in the crust and precipitate a variety of metallic sulfide minerals that make the water appear black; they are called black smokers (see Figure Black Smokers ). (c) Metamorphism occurs deep in the earth under very high temperature and pressure and produces several building stones, including marble and slate, as well as some nonmetallic ore, including asbestos, talc, and graphite. (d) Sedimentary processes occur in rivers that concentrate sand and gravel (used in construction), as well as dense gold particles and diamonds that weathered away from bedrock. These gold and diamond ore bodies are called placer deposits . Other sedimentary ore deposits include the deep ocean floor, which contains manganese and cobalt ore deposits and evaporated lakes or seawater, which produce halite and a variety of other salts. (e) Biological processes involve the action of living organisms and are responsible for the formation of pearls in oysters, as well as phosphorous ore in the feces of birds and the bones and teeth of fish. (f) Weathering in tropical rain forest environments involves soil water that concentrates insoluble elements such as aluminum (bauxite) by dissolving away the soluble elements.

A Diamond Mine Udachnaya Pipe, an open-pit diamond mine in Russia, is more than 600 meters (1,970 ft) deep, making it the third deepest open-pit mine in the world. Source: Stapanov Alexander via Wikimedia Commons

Black Smoker A billowing discharge of superheated mineral-rich water at an oceanic ridge, in the Atlantic Ocean. Black “smoke” is actually from metallic sulfide minerals that form modern ore deposits. Source: P. Rona of U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via Wikimedia Commons

Mining and Processing Ore

There are two kinds of mineral mines, surface mines and underground mines . The kind of mine used depends on the quality of the ore, i.e., concentration of mineral and its distance from the surface. Surface mines include open-pit mines , which commonly involve large holes that extract relatively low-grade metallic ore (see Figure Open Pit Mine ), strip mines , which extract horizontal layers of ore or rock, and placer mines , where gold or diamonds are extracted from river and beach sediment by scooping up (dredging) the sediment and then separating the ore by density. Large, open-pit mines can create huge piles of rock (called overburden) that was removed to expose the ore as well as huge piles of ore for processing. Underground mines, which are used when relatively high-grade ore is too deep for surface mining, involve a network of tunnels to access and extract the ore. Processing metallic ore (e.g., gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, and lead) can involve numerous steps including crushing, grinding with water, physically separating the ore minerals from non-ore minerals often by density, and chemically separating the metal from the ore minerals using methods such as smelting (heating the ore minerals with different chemicals to extract the metal) and leaching (using chemicals to dissolve the metal from a large volume of crushed rock). The fine-grained waste produced from processing ore is called tailings . Slag is the glassy unwanted by-product of smelting ore. Many of the nonmetallic minerals and rocks do not require chemical separation techniques.

Open Pit Mine Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah, USA. At 4 km wide and 1.2 km deep, it is the world’s deepest open-pit mine. It began operations in 1906. Source: Tim Jarrett via Wikimedia Commons

Mineral Resources and Sustainability Issues

Our heavy dependence on mineral resources presents humanity with some difficult challenges related to sustainability, including how to cope with finite supplies and how to mitigate the enormous environmental impacts of mining and processing ore. As global population growth continues—and perhaps more importantly, as standards of living rise around the world—demand for products made from minerals will increase. In particular, the economies of China, India, Brazil, and a few other countries are growing very quickly, and their demand for critical mineral resources also is accelerating. That means we are depleting our known mineral deposits at an increasing rate, requiring that new deposits be found and put into production. Figure Demand for Nonfuel Minerals Materials shows the large increase in US mineral consumption between 1900 and 2006. Considering that mineral resources are nonrenewable, it is reasonable to ask how long they will last. The Table Strategic Minerals gives a greatly approximated answer to that question for a variety of important and strategic minerals based on the current production and the estimated mineral reserves . Based on this simplified analysis, the estimated life of these important mineral reserves varies from more than 800 to 20 years. It is important to realize that we will not completely run out of any of these minerals but rather the economically viable mineral deposits will be used up. Additional complications arise if only a few countries produce the mineral and they decide not to export it. This situation is looming for rare earth elements, which currently are produced mainly by China, which is threatening to limit exports of these strategic minerals.

Demand for Nonfuel Minerals Materials US mineral consumption from 1900 – 2006, excluding energy-related minerals Source: U.S. Geological Survey

A more complex analysis of future depletions of our mineral supplies predicts that 20 out of 23 minerals studied will likely experience a permanent shortfall in global supply by 2030 where global production is less than global demand ( Clugston, 2010 ). Specifically this study concludes the following: for cadmium, gold, mercury, tellurium, and tungsten—they have already passed their global production peak, their future production only will decline, and it is nearly certain that there will be a permanent global supply shortfall by 2030; for cobalt, lead, molybdenum, platinum group metals, phosphate rock, silver, titanium, and zinc—they are likely at or near their global production peak and there is a very high probability that there will be a permanent global supply shortfall by 2030; for chromium, copper, indium, iron ore, lithium, magnesium compounds, nickel, and phosphate rock—they are expected to reach their global production peak between 2010 and 2030 and there is a high probability that there will be a permanent global supply shortfall by 2030; and for bauxite, rare earth minerals, and tin—they are not expected to reach their global production peak before 2030 and there is a low probability that there will be a permanent global supply shortfall by 2030. It is important to note that these kinds of predictions of future mineral shortages are difficult and controversial. Other scientists disagree with Clugston’s predictions of mineral shortages in the near future. Predictions similar to Clugston were made in the 1970s and they were wrong. It is difficult to know exactly the future demand for minerals and the size of future mineral reserves. The remaining life for specific minerals will decrease if future demand increases. On the other hand, mineral reserves can increase if new mineral deposits are found (increasing the known amount of ore) or if currently unprofitable mineral deposits become profitable ones due to either a mineral price increase or technological improvements that make mining or processing cheaper. Mineral resources , a much larger category than mineral reserves, are the total amount of a mineral that is not necessarily profitable to mine today but that has some sort of economic potential.

Mining and processing ore can have considerable impact on the environment. Surface mines can create enormous pits (see Figure Open Pit Mine ) in the ground as well as large piles of overburden and tailings that need to be reclaimed , i.e., restored to a useful landscape. Since 1977 surface mines in U.S. are required to be reclaimed, and commonly reclamation is relatively well done in this country. Unfortunately, surface mine reclamation is not done everywhere, especially in underdeveloped countries, due to lack of regulations or lax enforcement of regulations. Unreclaimed surface mines and active surface mines can be major sources of water and sediment pollution. Metallic ore minerals (e.g., copper, lead, zinc, mercury, and silver) commonly include abundant sulfide, and many metallic ore deposits contain abundant pyrite (iron sulfide). The sulfide in these minerals oxidizes quickly when exposed to air at the surface producing sulfuric acid, called acid mine drainage . As a result streams, ponds, and soil water contaminated with this drainage can be highly acidic, reaching pH values of zero or less (see Figure Acid Mine Drainage)! The acidic water can leach heavy metals such as nickel, copper, lead, arsenic, aluminum, and manganese from mine tailings and slag. The acidic contaminated water can be highly toxic to the ecosystem. Plants usually will not regrow in such acidic soil water, and therefore soil erosion rates skyrocket due to the persistence of bare, unvegetated surfaces. With a smaller amount of tailings and no overburden, underground mines usually are much easier to reclaim, and they produce much less acid mine drainage. The major environmental problem with underground mining is the hazardous working environment for miners primarily caused by cave-ins and lung disease due to prolonged inhalation of dust particles. Underground cave-ins also can damage the surface from subsidence. Smelting can be a major source of air pollution, especially SO 2 gas. The case history below examines the environmental impact of mining and processing gold ore.

Acid Mine Drainage The water in Rio Tinto River, Spain is highly acidic (pH = ~2) and the orange color is from iron in the water. A location along this river has been mined beginning some 5,000 years ago primarily for copper and more recently for silver and gold. Source: Sean Mack of NASA via Wikimedia Commons

Sustainable Solutions to the Mineral Crisis?

Providing sustainable solutions to the problem of a dwindling supply of a nonrenewable resource such as minerals seems contradictory. Nevertheless, it is extremely important to consider strategies that move towards sustainability even if true sustainability is not possible for most minerals. The general approach towards mineral sustainability should include mineral conservation at the top of the list. We also need to maximize exploration for new mineral resources while at the same time we minimize the environmental impact of mineral mining and processing .

Conservation of mineral resources includes improved efficiency, substitution, and the 3 Rs of sustainability, reduce, reuse, and recycle. Improved efficiency applies to all features of mineral use including mining, processing, and creation of mineral products. Substituting a rare nonrenewable resource with either a more abundant nonrenewable resource or a renewable resource can help. Examples include substituting glass fiber optic cables for copper in telephone wires and wood for aluminum in construction. Reducing global demand for mineral resources will be a challenge, considering projections of continuing population growth and the rapid economic growth of very large countries such as China, India, and Brazil. Historically economic growth is intimately tied to increased mineral consumption, and therefore it will be difficult for those rapidly developing countries to decrease their future demand for minerals. In theory, it should be easier for countries with a high mineral consumption rate such as the U.S. to reduce their demand for minerals but it will take a significant change in mindset to accomplish that. Technology can help some with some avenues to reducing mineral consumption. For example, digital cameras have virtually eliminated the photographic demand for silver, which is used for film development. Using stronger and more durable alloys of steel can translate to fewer construction materials needed. Examples of natural resource reuse include everything at an antique store and yard sale. Recycling can extend the lifetime of mineral reserves, especially metals. Recycling is easiest for pure metals such as copper pipes and aluminum cans, but much harder for alloys (mixtures of metals) and complex manufactured goods, such as computers. Many nonmetals cannot be recycled; examples include road salt and fertilizer. Recycling is easier for a wealthy country because there are more financial resources to use for recycling and more goods to recycle. Additional significant benefits of mineral resource conservation are less pollution and environmental degradation from new mineral mining and processing as well as reductions in energy use and waste production.

Because demand for new minerals will likely increase in the future, we must continue to search for new minerals, even though we probably have already found many of the “easy” targets, i.e., high-grade ore deposits close to the surface and in convenient locations. To find more difficult ore targets, we will need to apply many technologies including geophysical methods (seismic, gravity, magnetic, and electrical measurements, as well as remote sensing, which uses satellite-based measurements of electromagnetic radiation from Earth’s surface), geochemical methods (looking for chemical enrichments in soil, water, air, and plants), and geological information including knowledge of plate tectonics theory. We also may need to consider exploring and mining unconventional areas such as continental margins (submerged edges of continents), the ocean floor (where there are large deposits of manganese ore and other metals in rocks called manganese nodules), and oceanic ridges (undersea mountains that have copper, zinc, and lead ore bodies).

Finally, we need to explore for, mine, and process new minerals while minimizing pollution and other environmental impacts. Regulations and good engineering practices are necessary to ensure adequate mine reclamation and pollution reduction, including acid mine drainage. The emerging field of biotechnology may provide some sustainable solutions to metal extraction. Specific methods include biooxidation (microbial enrichment of metals in a solid phase), bioleaching (microbial dissolution of metals), biosorption (attachment of metals to cells), and genetic engineering of microbes (creating microorganisms specialized in extracting metal from ore).

Review Questions

Name some important ways mineral resources are used. Why are they important to society?

What are the major environmental issues associated with mineral resources?

What should society learn from the case history of gold?

Why is society facing a crisis involving mineral supply and how might we work to solve it?

Clugston, C. (2010) Increasing Global Nonrenewable Natural Resource Scarcity – An Analysis, The Oil Drum. Retrieved from http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6345

Craig J, Vaughan D, and Skinner B (2011) Earth Resources and the Environment (4th ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall, p. 92

• 1 Americans also consumed more than 21,000 pounds of energy resources from the Earth including coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium.
• 2 Economic concentration value for gold comes from Craig, Vaughan, Skinner (2011).
• Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation. Authored by : Tom Theis and Jonathan Tomkin, Editors.. Provided by : OpenStax CNX. Located at : http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected] . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]

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6 (page 97) p. 97 Minerals as resources

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The mineral resources taken from the Earth are now essential for human survival and the growth in consumption in recent years has been dramatic. ‘Minerals as resources’ looks at the different kinds of resources: ores from which metals are extracted, industrial minerals such as fluorite, and chemical minerals such as halite. The properties of minerals are important in how they are used. For example, the carbon mineral, diamond, is the hardest substance known and is used in industry for making cutting tools, whereas the clay mineral, kaolinite, is inert and is used in many manufacturing processes. Zeolites are used to extract impurities from water. But how are these mineral deposits formed?

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Geology and Mining: Mineral Resources and Reserves: Their Estimation, Use, and Abuse

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Simon M. Jowitt , Brian A. McNulty; Geology and Mining: Mineral Resources and Reserves: Their Estimation, Use, and Abuse. SEG Discovery 2021;; (125): 27–36. doi: https://doi.org/10.5382/Geo-and-Mining-11

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Editor’s note: The Geology and Mining series, edited by Dan Wood and Jeffrey Hedenquist, is designed to introduce early-career professionals and students to a variety of topics in mineral exploration, development, and mining, in order to provide insight into the many ways in which geoscientists contribute to the mineral industry.

Resource and reserve estimation is a critical step in mine development and the progression from mineral exploration to commodity production. The data inputs typically change over time and reflect variations in geoscientific knowledge as well as the modifying factors required by regulation for estimating a reserve. These factors include mineral (ore) processing, metallurgical treatment of the ore, infrastructure requirements for mine and workforce, and the transportation of processed products to buyers; others that will affect the production of metals and/or minerals from a deposit include economic, marketing, legal, environmental, social, and governmental factors. All are needed by the mining industry to quantify the contained mineralization within mineral deposits that likely warrant the significant capital investment required to build a mine. However, these resource and reserve data are estimates that change over time due to unpredicted variations in the initial inputs. Paramount to the two estimates are the quality and accuracy of the geologic inputs and the communication of these to the professionals tasked with making each estimate. Geostatistical processing of the grade of the resource has become a dominant element of the estimation process, but this requires transparent and informed communication between geologists and mining engineers with the geostatistician responsible for mathematically processing the grade data. Regulatory constraints also mean that estimated resources and reserves seldom capture the full extent of a mineral deposit. Similarly, co- and by-product metals and minerals that are commonly produced by mines may not be captured by resource and reserve estimates because of their limited economic contribution. This suggests that reporting standards for co- and by-products—particularly for the critical metals that may have a sharp increase in demand—need improvement. Finally, the importance of these data to the mining industry is such that informing investors and the broader public about the nature of resource and reserve estimates, and the meaning of associated terminology, is also essential when considering the global metal and mineral supply, and the role of mining in modern society.

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Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the U.S. Economy (2008)

Chapter: 6 conclusions and recommendations, chapter 6 conclusions and recommendations.

Minerals, or more specifically the mineral products derived from them, are essential to the functioning of modern processes and products. Some minerals are more essential than others, in the sense that they have few if any substitutes capable of providing similar functionality at similar costs.

The availability of these minerals is a function of geologic, technical, environmental and social, political, and economic factors. Some minerals are more prone than others to disruptive restrictions in supply.

It is this combination of importance in use and supply risk, and specifically the potential that an important mineral may be subject to supply restrictions, that motivated this study. The committee was charged to carry out a number of specific tasks identified in Chapter 1 :

Identify the critical minerals and mineral products that are essential for industry and emerging technologies in the domestic economy.

Assess the trends in the sources and production status of these critical minerals and mineral products worldwide.

Examine actual or potential constraints, including but not limited to geologic, technologic, economic, and political issues, on the availability of these minerals and mineral products for domestic applications.

Identify the impacts of disruptions in supply of critical minerals and mineral products on the domestic workforce and economy.

Describe and evaluate the current mineral and mineral product databases and other sources of information available for decision making on mineral policy issues.

Identify types of information and possible research initiatives that will enhance understanding of critical minerals and mineral products in a global context.

Chapters 2 through 5 have examined the various dimensions of the overall task, and each chapter concluded with principal findings. This chapter presents the committee’s principal conclusions, drawing on each previous chapter’s findings, and summarizes the committee’s recommendations following from these conclusions. Throughout its examination of these issues, the committee found it essential to consider minerals, and critical minerals, in the context of a global mineral and material cycle—from mineral ores at the mine to metallic and nonmetallic minerals in potentially recyclable materials and products.

The committee established parameters regarding a mineral’s importance in use and availability (supply risk) to apply the criticality matrix to 11 minerals or mineral groups: copper, gallium, indium, lithium, manganese, niobium, platinum group metals (PGMs), rare earth elements (REs), tantalum, titanium, and vanadium. The committee did not have the time or resources to evaluate all potentially critical minerals. Instead, the committee selected the minerals identified above on the basis of two considerations. First, the set of minerals the committee examined had to illustrate the range of circumstances that the matrix methodology accommodates and considers. For example, in its selection of the minerals examined in this report, the committee considered minerals used in large quantities throughout the economy in traditional applications and others used in limited quantities in a small number of (often emerging) applications, minerals produced largely as by-products, and other minerals for which recycling of scrap is an important source of supply. Second, the set of minerals had to consist of those that, in the professional judgment of committee members, would likely be included in a more comprehensive assessment of all potentially critical minerals. The committee used a combination of quantitative

measures and expert (qualitative) judgment in implementing the matrix methodology.

CONCLUSIONS

Defining criticality.

The committee concludes that all minerals and mineral products could be or could become critical to some degree, depending on their importance and availability —in the sense that the chemical and physical properties they provide are essential to a specific product or use or more broadly, that specific minerals are an essential input for a national priority (for example, national defense) or for an industry, or may be important (or have the potential to become important) to a region or the nation as a whole. Materials derived from minerals are essential to the performance of nearly all products and services we take for granted—cellular telephones, automobiles, home appliances, computers and other electronic products, and aircraft, for example. The degree of a mineral’s importance can vary considerably over time as technologies and the economy evolve and change.

The committee also concludes, however, that more useful from the federal perspective is the concept of a critical mineral as one that is both essential in use and subject to supply restriction . In other words, the key determinants of criticality here are importance in use and availability. Based on these determinants, the committee developed a methodology—a ‘criticality matrix’—for assessing the criticality of specific minerals and identified the information requirements for implementing this methodology. The matrix has two dimensions. The first (vertical axis) represents the degree of importance of a mineral or, equivalently, the impact of a supply restriction. The second dimension (horizontal axis) represents the degree of supply risk or the risk of a supply restriction.

This methodology emphasizes that criticality is a relative concept in that minerals are more or less critical, rather than critical or not critical. At any time, and for any organization or nation, some minerals will be more critical than others. Over time, the criticality of a specific mineral

can and likely will change as production technologies evolve and new products are developed.

Furthermore, the committee concludes that in implementing the methodology to assess criticality, it is important to distinguish among three time or adjustment periods . In the short term (period of a few months to a few years), mineral markets and in turn prices are influenced primarily by unexpected changes in mineral demand, such as the largely unanticipated increase in Chinese mineral demand over the last several years, and by unexpected shortfalls in production due to technical or other problems at existing mines and production facilities. In the short term, from the perspective of a mineral market as a whole, mineral users and producers are constrained by their existing production capacity, and therefore, unexpected changes in demand or supply are reflected largely in inventories held by producers, users, and commodity exchanges.

In the medium term (a few years, but no more than about a decade), markets respond to short-term developments but still in a relatively limited manner; for example, if a mineral’s availability has become restricted, mineral users make any easy substitution for this mineral, and mineral producers bring into production any easy-to-develop, higher-cost sources of the restricted mineral (e.g., higher-cost scrap that previously was not recycled; and higher-cost, known but underdeveloped mineral deposits). In the medium term, mineral users and producers are essentially limited by existing technologies and known primary and secondary mineral resources.

Over the long term (roughly a decade or more), mineral users and producers can respond more significantly to changes in mineral availability through conscious decisions about whether and to what degree to invest in innovative activities in mineral exploration, mine development, mineral processing, product design and manufacturing, and recycling technology and policy.

Understanding Importance in Use or the Impact of a Supply Restriction

Users demand minerals and mineral attributes for the functionality they provide—their chemical and physical properties in specific applications

such as strength, corrosion resistance, electrical conductivity, low density, and so on. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, some minerals are more essential than others in the sense that they have few if any substitutes capable of providing similar functionality at similar costs. The greater the difficulty, expense, or time it takes for material substitution to occur, the more critical a mineral is to a specific application or product—or analogously, the greater is the impact of a supply restriction.

The impact of a specific supply restriction, in other words, depends on the nature of the restriction. A supply restriction can occur in two general forms. First, demand can increase and outstrip existing production capacity (a demand shock). Second, in what normally would be considered a disruption, a material that previously was available becomes unavailable (a supply shock). In either case, it is possible that a mineral or mineral product becomes physically unavailable; in this situation, the product a user makes cannot be manufactured, sold, and then used by the prospective purchaser. More typically, however, a mineral or mineral product remains physically available, but at a higher price. In this situation, supply will be reallocated to those users willing to pay more for a mineral or mineral product and away from lower-valued uses.

The specific impact of a supply restriction will depend on circumstances: Is the mineral physically unavailable, or have prices increased? If prices rise, by how much? How flexible or inflexible is demand (that is, how easy or difficult is it to substitute for the restricted mineral)? Finally, time is important. In the short term, mineral users will be relatively limited in the degree to which they can adjust to physical unavailability or higher prices for a mineral or mineral product. Users are constrained by the flexibility of their production processes that use minerals as inputs. Most production processes are relatively inflexible in the short term. A facility that manufactures aluminum cans, for example, cannot immediately reduce the amount of aluminum it uses per can or convert itself into glass bottle making facility. In the medium term, users have somewhat more flexibility. An aluminum can-making facility might be able to invest in existing technology that uses less aluminum per can than its facility currently requires. Alternatively, it might decide to become a glass bottle-making facility. Over

the long term, users of minerals and mineral products will be relatively most flexible to respond to a supply restriction. There is time for a facility that manufactures aluminum cans to innovate and develop a process for using less aluminum per can than previously.

In any of these adjustment periods, the types of possible effects include impacts on:

Domestic production of minerals and mineral products: there may be opportunities for increased domestic production of the mineral or mineral product whose supply has been restricted (higher-cost but previously uneconomic primary or secondary production).

Domestic users of minerals or mineral products (typically producers of semifabricated products and manufacturers of final products):

Lost production due to lack of availability or higher costs (use will be concentrated in higher-valued uses of a mineral or mineral product);

Higher costs of production, which producers may or may not be able to pass along to consumers;

Slower growth than otherwise in emerging-use industries;

Less employment than otherwise in industries using minerals and mineral products as inputs;

Ultimately lower value added in those sectors using minerals and mineral products, and lower gross domestic product (GDP), although the impact on GDP of a supply disruption for any single mineral or mineral product will be small from the perspective of the national economy;

Higher costs or reduced availability of products related to national defense.

Domestic purchasers of goods containing minerals and mineral products: there may be fewer purchases or more expensive purchases because goods have become more expensive (in either case, purchasers are worse off than previously).

The committee did not attempt to quantify these effects. To do so would have required detailed and separate economic impact analyses for each specific circumstance, and the committee was not constituted with sufficient expertise to carry out this type of quantitative analysis. However, the committee notes that the largest impacts on national employment and GDP would come from supply restrictions on minerals and mineral products used in large quantities; of the minerals the committee examined using its criticality methodology, copper falls into this category, even though copper did not qualify as critical in the committee’s eyes because its supply risk is low. Other minerals that the committee believes would be evaluated similarly include iron ore, aluminum, and aggregates.

Understanding Availability and Supply Risk

Fundamentally, minerals are a primary resource in that we obtain them from the Earth’s crust. At any point in time, however, minerals—or more precisely the mineral products obtained from them—are available as secondary resources through recycling of obsolete or discarded products and materials. Finally, from the perspective of a nation, mineral products are available as tertiary resources embodied in imported products or imported scrap. The U.S. economy obtains minerals and mineral products in all three forms—primary, secondary, and tertiary. Although the United States has been and remains an important producer of primary and secondary minerals, it also relies on imports for a number of primary and tertiary minerals.

For primary production worldwide and in the United States, mineral exploration, mining, and mineral processing are sectors whose fortunes change significantly from year to year because of the strong link between mineral demand and economic growth. In periods of especially strong economic growth, mineral use in general expands more quickly than production capacity, tending to drive up mineral prices, whereas in periods of slower growth or recession, mineral use tends to grow more slowly than production capacity and prices tend to fall. Given the fragility of the balance between demand and supply, mineral prices tend to swing significantly

from one year to another. Since early in this decade, the mineral sector overall has experienced an extended boom (and relatively high mineral prices) due to a number of factors, including unexpectedly large increases in mineral demand in China and some other countries and unexpected interruptions in production at a number of mines due to technical problems and other factors.

The level and location of mine production today depend on the level and location of mineral exploration in the past. The level of exploration tends to follow changes in mineral prices, but usually with a short time lag. The composition of exploration activity varies with mineral prices. In recent years during a period of relatively high mineral prices, exploration by small exploration companies (termed “juniors”) in riskier and more remote locations has increased proportionately more than exploration by larger and more established mining companies. Conversely, when mineral prices fall, exploration by junior companies tends to fall proportionately more than that by larger companies, resulting in relatively less exploration in remote locations and more exploration in proximity to existing mines. The geographic location of exploration and mining also evolves over time. In recent years, relatively more exploration and mining has occurred outside the established areas of Australia, Canada, and the United States.

Turning from primary to secondary production, recycling tends to be concentrated close to semifabrication and metal manufacturing facilities and close to urban centers to take advantage of the creation of scrap when buildings are demolished and products are discarded. As a result, most metal recycling occurs in industrialized economies where the majority of metal use historically has occurred. Nevertheless, a significant amount of recycling occurs in developing economies, where perhaps a larger percentage of the available scrap is actually recycled than in industrialized economies. Given the long-term trend of increasing mineral use and low rates of recycling, recycled materials cannot presently meet a large proportion of demand for most materials. Over time, as products used in developing economies become available for recycling, we can expect scrap flows to increase and the location of recycling to become more geographically diverse than at present.

In considering supply risk and implementing the matrix methodology, as noted above, the committee found it essential to distinguish between short- and medium-term availability of minerals and mineral products, on the one hand, and long-term availability, on the other. In the short and medium term , there may be significant restrictions to supply for at least five reasons. First, demand may increase significantly , and if production already is occurring at close to capacity, then either a mineral may become physically unavailable or, more likely, its price will rise significantly—demand can increase more quickly than production capacity can respond. Second, an increase in demand due to growth in new applications of a mineral may be especially restrictive or disruptive if preexisting uses were small relative to the new use ( thin markets ). Third, supply may be prone to restriction if production is concentrated ; if concentrated in a small number of mines, supply may be prone to restriction if unexpected technical or labor problems occur at a mine; if concentrated in the hands of a small number of companies, supply may be prone to restriction by opportunistic behavior of companies with market power; if concentrated in the hands of a small number of producing countries, supply may be prone to restriction due to political decisions in the producing country. Fourth, if mine production comes predominantly in the form of by-product production , then the output over the short term (and perhaps even longer) may be insensitive to changes in market conditions for the by-product because the output of a by-product is largely a function of market conditions for the main product. Finally, the lack of available old scrap for recycling or of the infrastructure required for recycling makes a market more prone to supply restriction than otherwise.

An additional factor, import dependence, often is cited as an indicator of vulnerable supply and has carried the implication that imported supply may be less secure than domestic supply. The committee concludes that import dependence by itself is not a useful indicator of supply risk . In fact, import reliance may be good for the U.S. economy if an imported mineral has a lower cost than the domestic alternative. Rather, for imports to be vulnerable to supply restriction, some other factor must be present that makes them vulnerable to disruption—for example, supply is concentrated

in one or a small number of exporting nations with high political risk or in a nation with such significant growth in internal demand that formerly exported minerals may be redirected toward internal, domestic use. However, imports may be no less secure than domestic supply if they come from a diverse set of countries or firms or if they represent intracompany transfers within the vertical chain of a firm (for example, imported metal concentrate to be smelted and refined at a company’s domestic processing facilities).

Over the longer term , the availability of minerals and mineral prod ucts is largely a function of investment and the various factors that influ ence the level of investment and its geographic allocation and success. An important investment is that in education and research, and the committee suggests that the long-term availability of minerals and mineral products also requires continued investment in mineral education and research .

Education and research contribute to determining long-term mineral availability for both primary and secondary resources in all of their dimensions. For primary resources, the first important dimension is geologic availability (in what quantities, concentrations, and mineralogical forms does a mineral exist in Earth’s crust?). Education and research of course do not determine whether and in what form a mineral occurs in Earth’s crust; rather education and research determine our knowledge of Earth’s crust. The second determinant is technical availability (does the technology exist to extract and process the element or mineral?). Technical availability depends on investment in technological knowledge. The third determinant is environmental and social availability (can we mine and process minerals such that the consequences of these activities on local communities and on the natural environment are consistent with social preferences and requirements?). Environmental and social availability depends on investment in activities that appeal to social preferences and that develop means for carrying out mining and mineral processing in socially acceptable ways. The fourth determinant is political availability (to what extent do public policies influence mineral supply?). Political availability depends on investment in the design of public policy and on the political decisions governments make that influence the level and location of production. The fifth and

final determinant is economic availability (can we produce minerals and mineral products at prices that users are willing and able to pay?). In some sense, economic availability reflects the combined effects of the other four determinants of availability.

For secondary resources over the longer term, availability depends on four of the same above factors. Technology in the secondary resources sector is far behind that in the primary sector, and many gains are to be had by investing additional engineering time and effort. On the environmental and social front, recycling needs to occur with a greater degree of urgency, and making changes in this area is largely a social challenge. Politically, attention needs to be paid to understanding the national implications of resource scarcity, to providing the funds to better characterize the secondary resource, and to better evaluate opportunities for domestic recovery of secondary materials. Finally, it will be necessary to create economic incentives to make better use of the secondary resources now above the ground and in use, but often more costly to use at present than imported virgin material. Well-designed and competently directed research into improved recycling technologies may prove an effective tool in the reduction of our dependence on imports of critical minerals.

Implementing the Mineral Criticality Matrix

The committee applied its criticality matrix methodology to 11 minerals or mineral families it considered candidates for criticality. The committee acknowledges the existence of numerous other minerals that individuals, industrial sectors, organizations, or government officials might consider critical to their particular needs or requirements now or in the future. At a practical level, the committee did not have the resources for comprehensive analysis of all minerals using its methodology.

In evaluating these minerals or mineral families, the committee took a short- and a medium-term perspective—that is, within the next decade, what are the risks of a supply restriction, and how significant would the impact of restrictions be should they occur? Of the 11 minerals or mineral families the committee examined, those that exhibit the highest degree

of criticality at present are: indium, manganese, niobium, PGMs, and REs . The committee studied PGMs and REs in some depth, while it examined indium, manganese, and niobium in a more limited manner. Each of these minerals has a slightly different story in terms of importance in use (impact of a supply restriction) and availability (supply risk), the two dimensions of criticality.

PGMs—consisting primarily of platinum, palladium, and rhodium—are essential in automotive catalysts. Palladium can partially substitute for platinum in gasoline vehicles. Palladium cannot be substituted for platinum in diesel vehicles. Rhodium has no known substitutes in the control of NO x emissions. PGMs also are essential determinants of product quality in several industrial applications (the production of fertilizers, explosives, and petrochemicals). PGMs are mined almost exclusively in South Africa and Russia, and are typically mined as coproducts. The United States has two small PGM mines and a minor quantity of subeconomic PGM resources. Recycling occurs, primarily of spent automotive catalysts, but this amount is modest relative to annual use. The PGM market is relatively small, with annual worldwide mine production on the order of 200,000 kilograms.

REs are essential, with few if any good substitutes, in automotive catalytic converters, permanent magnets, and phosphors used in medical imaging devices, televisions, and computer monitors. The RE market is fragile because it is small—worldwide mine production in 2006 was on the order of 100,000 metric tons. U.S. manufacturers import REs predominantly from China. Very little recycling occurs. The United States has significant RE resources, but at present these resources are subeconomic.

Indium has no adequate substitutes for flat-panel displays. This use has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Worldwide mine production is small—some 500 metric tons in 2006, largely as a by-product of zinc mining and processing. The indium that U.S. manufacturers use comes primarily from China, Canada, Japan, and Russia. Very little indium is recovered through recycling.

Manganese has no satisfactory substitutes as a hardening element in various types of steel. It is not mined at present in the United States. The

majority of U.S. imports comes in the form of ore from Gabon and South Africa and ferromanganese from South Africa, China, Brazil, and France. U.S. manganese resources are subeconomic. Some manganese is recovered as a part of ferrous and nonferrous scrap recovery; almost none of this recovery is for manganese in particular but rather for the steel or other nonferrous metal of which manganese is a minor element.

Niobium is used in carbon, high-strength low-alloy (HSLA), and stainless steels. It also is used in superalloys for aircraft engines. Where substitution is technically possible, performance is sacrificed. Niobium use in HSLA steels has fallen considerably, but has increased in superalloys. Niobium is not mined in the United States, at least not in any significant quantity. U.S. users import the majority of their niobium from Brazil and to a lesser extent from Canada. The niobium market is small; estimated 2006 mine production was on the order of 60,000 metric tons. Known U.S. resources are very small and subeconomic. Significant recycling of niobium from niobium-containing steels and superalloys occurs; very little of this recycling is targeted at niobium in particular but rather for the steel or superalloy itself.

On the basis of these applications of the methodology, the committee concludes that the criticality matrix methodology is a useful conceptual framework for evaluating a mineral’s criticality in a balanced manner in a variety of circumstances that will be useful for decision makers in the public and private sectors . Decision makers should be prepared to reevaluate a mineral’s criticality whenever one of the underlying determinants of criticality changes or appears likely to change. In the short to medium term, the most likely factors to change are, first of all, demand, which could increase sharply if a new application is developed for a specific mineral and, second, the degree to which a mineral’s production is concentrated in a small number of companies or countries, which in turn might be prone to opportunistic behavior. A more nuanced and quantitative version of the matrix could be established and used as part of the federal program for mineral data collection, analysis, and dissemination.

Assessing Information and Research Needs

In the progress of this study, the committee has frequently compared the constrained scope and depth of information on minerals with the broad scope and great depth of financial information acquired and analyzed by the federal government. The usefulness of this financial information by governments, industries, and many other users suggests that an enhanced information program on minerals could be more broadly and deeply beneficial as well. The mineral information available at present is used widely but is also acknowledged to be considerably less detailed than is desirable. This is particularly the case for mineral information related to other countries, where high-quality data are essential for accurate determinations of criticality for U.S. industries and for the country as a whole.

A large number of government and nongovernmental, international, and domestic organizations collect and disseminate information and databases relevant for decision making on critical minerals and other mineral policy issues for public and private use. The consensus view of private, academic, and federal professionals is that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Minerals Information Team is the most comprehensive, responsible, and responsive source of mineral information internationally, but that the quantity and depth of its data and analysis have fallen in recent years, due at least in part to reduced or static budgets and associated reductions in staff and data coverage.

In its evaluation of information and research needs, the committee concludes the following:

Decision makers in both the public and the private sectors need continuous, unbiased, and thorough mineral information pro vided through a federally funded system of information collec tion and dissemination.

The effectiveness of a government agency or program is de pendent on the agency’s or program’s autonomy, its level of resources, and its authority to enforce data collection. In the committee’s view, federal information gathering for minerals at

present does not have sufficient authority and autonomy to ap propriately carry out data collection, dissemination, and analy sis. In particular, the committee concludes that USGS Minerals Information Team activities are less robust than they might be, in part because it does not have status as a “principal” statistical agency.

More complete information needs to be collected, and more re search needs to be conducted, on the full mineral life cycle. The committee includes its specific recommendations in the following section. A common theme in these recommendations is the value of an investment in material flow accounting to better quantify stocks, flows, and uncertainty for primary, secondary, and tertiary resources.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Recognizing the dynamic nature of mineral supply and demand and of criticality, and in light of the conclusions above, the committee makes the following recommendations:

The federal government should enhance the types of data and infor mation it collects, disseminates, and analyzes on minerals and mineral products, especially as these data and information relate to minerals and mineral products that are or may become critical.

In particular, more attention than at present needs to be given to those areas of the mineral life cycle that are underrepresented in current information-gathering activities, including: reserves and subeconomic resources; by-product and coproduct primary production; stocks and flows of secondary material available for recycling; in-use stocks; material flows; international trade, especially of metals and mineral products embodied in imported and exported products; and related information deemed appropriate and necessary. Enhanced mineral analysis should include periodic assessment of mineral criticality over a wider range of minerals and in

greater depth than was possible for this committee to undertake, using the committee’s methodology or some other suitable method.

The federal government should continue to carry out the neces sary function of collecting, disseminating, and analyzing mineral data and information. The USGS Minerals Information Team, or whatever federal unit might later be assigned these responsibilities, should have greater authority and autonomy than at present. It also should have suf ficient resources to carry out its mandate, which would be broader than the Minerals Information Team’s current mandate if the committee’s recommendations are adopted. It should establish formal mechanisms for communicating with users, government and nongovernmental or ganizations or institutes, and the private sector on the types and quality of data and information it collects, disseminates, and analyzes. It should be organized to have the flexibility to collect, disseminate, and analyze additional, nonbasic data and information, in consultation with users, as specific minerals and mineral products become relatively more critical over time (and vice versa).

The Energy Information Administration provides a potential model for such an agency or administrative unit. The federal government should consider whether a comparable mineral information administration would have status as a principal statistical agency and, if not, what other procedures should be investigated and implemented to give an agency with the mandate to collect mineral data and information greater autonomy and authority, as well as sufficient resources to carry out its mandate. In the globalized mineral market, it is essential that the United States has a central authority through which to conduct outreach and exchange programs on mineral data with international counterparts and to collect and harmonize data from international sources. Combined U.S. government and foreign government efforts are likely to provide the most accurate, uniform, and complete data sets of this information over time and thereby provide adequate information to all communities concerned about future global mineral or material supply and demand trends.

Federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, De partment of the Interior (including the USGS), Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and Department of Commerce, should develop and fund activities, including basic science and policy research, to en courage U.S. innovation in the areas of critical minerals and materials and to enhance understanding of global mineral availability and use.

Without renewed federal commitment to innovative mineral research and education, it is doubtful whether the recommended activities regarding mineral information will be sufficient for the nation to successfully anticipate and respond to possible short- to long-term restrictions in mineral markets.

The committee recommends the following additional initiatives in this regard:

Funded support for scientific, technical, and social scientific research focusing on the entire mineral life cycle, especially those specific areas identified in Recommendation 1; and

Cooperative programs involving academic organizations, industry, and government to enhance education and applied research.

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Minerals are part of virtually every product we use. Common examples include copper used in electrical wiring and titanium used to make airplane frames and paint pigments. The Information Age has ushered in a number of new mineral uses in a number of products including cell phones (e.g., tantalum) and liquid crystal displays (e.g., indium). For some minerals, such as the platinum group metals used to make cataytic converters in cars, there is no substitute. If the supply of any given mineral were to become restricted, consumers and sectors of the U.S. economy could be significantly affected. Risks to minerals supplies can include a sudden increase in demand or the possibility that natural ores can be exhausted or become too difficult to extract. Minerals are more vulnerable to supply restrictions if they come from a limited number of mines, mining companies, or nations. Baseline information on minerals is currently collected at the federal level, but no established methodology has existed to identify potentially critical minerals. This book develops such a methodology and suggests an enhanced federal initiative to collect and analyze the additional data needed to support this type of tool.

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Essay on minerals: meaning, occurrence and mining.

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Read this essay to learn about Minerals. After reading this essay you will learn about: 1. Meaning of Mineral 2. Occurrence of Minerals 3. Physical and Economic Conditions of Mining 4. Classification.

Essay # Meaning of Mineral:

A mineral is a natural substance of inorganic origin with definite chemical and physical properties. Since the beginning of Copper Age mining has become a very important economic activ­ity of mankind. This form of economic activity still contributes a sizable amount to the eco­nomic development of countries.

Minerals sometimes occur on the earth’s crust but most of the time are buried below the surface.

Large scale mining is dependent on several factors:

Size of the deposit, depth, amount and location.

Minerals vary a great deal in their structure, composition, use etc.

Broadly, minerals can be classified into the following groups:

The solid crust of the earth is made up of rocks. The rocks, in their turn, can be defined as the aggregates of minerals. The minerals, therefore, are the smallest geological units forming the crust and are themselves substances of inorganic nature. Minerals are, moreover, charac­terized more or less by their fixed chemical composition and exhibit perfect geometric shape and have an internal atomic structure.

To be designated as a mineral species, a substance must have the following three characteristic features:

(i) A mineral must be found in nature,

(ii) A mineral must be of inorganic origin, and

(iii) A mineral must possess a definite chemical characteristic and a distinctive atomic formation.

Most minerals have a crystalline structure. Substances like coal, petroleum and natural gas etc., though gifts of nature, are not minerals, because these are derived from organic sub­stances.

Minerals have long been considered as the basis for the development of human civiliza­tion through times. The Stone Age had been distinguished as the time when stones formed and fashioned the life and activities of the ancient men. At this period, the weapons and the essential crude implements of the man were made of stone.

Copper Age began as man discov­ered copper from the mines and learnt its utility. Then came the Bronze Age, when people developed a stronger and more durable metal by mixing copper and tin in suitable propor­tion. Historians are of opinion that about thousand years before Christian Era the Bronze Age was replaced by Iron Age. More recently, the Iron Age has given way to Steel Age of our modern times.

The real and massive exploration of the earth’s hidden treasure or minerals started with the advent of Industrial Revolution in England, more than a century ago. Within this relatively short span of time minerals have become, at an ever-accelerating rate, the essential basis of industrialization.

A dramatic change of the economic scenario of any region or country may take place following the exploration of minerals. Saudi Arabia is, perhaps, the best example. The country was simply a barren waste of desert even before World War II. But, following the emigration of the people from the West, oil exploration started leading to overall economic upliftment of the country. Thus, within a period of about four decades, the country emerged as a developing nation.

Some minerals can be obtained easily and cheaply than others because they lie at the surface of the earth. Others lie buried at depths of thousand metres beneath the earth’s surface. They can be explored by digging deep underground.

In the present time, mining is the basic factor for industrial development, because it alone provides means for advanced industrial operations. Minerals enable man to increase his productivity. Man utilizes various minerals to minimize his labour. In effect, minerals enlarge the versatility of a man’s hand and multiply the power of his muscles.

In contrast to agriculture or forestry, mining is a kind of robbery or plundering economy because a mineral once mined is lost forever as a natural resource. The natural replacement of minerals depends entirely on geological events. It is, therefore, the prime objective of different nations to utilize the mineral resources in the best possible way.

Mining and the processing of minerals exert tremendous impact on the economic well- being of a country in a number of ways which can be summarized as follows:

(a) They provide employment opportunities.

(b) They attract population to be settled around the mining sites.

(c) They stimulate the development of transportation.

(d) They open new scope for export earnings.

(e) Minerals extend the scope for the development of domestic industries.

Minerals are very unevenly distributed in different parts of the world. The countries hav­ing suitable geological formations are vastly endowed with different grades of minerals. No country in the world, whatever be its size and location, is completely self-sufficient in every mineral resource. The countries like the China or the United States of America have become industrially developed because of the presence of abundant mineral resources within their own territory.

The ever-increasing demand of minerals, to sustain the present form of indus­trial civilization, has caused the world to explore and consume more minerals within the pe­riod embracing the two World Wars than in all previous history of mankind. History reveals that the countries like Germany, Japan and Italy became aggressor nations because they were notably lacking in most critically important mineral resources.

Minerals are non-renewable resources, and, thus, more a country becomes industrially advanced the more rapidly it ex­hausts its own mineral deposits and is bound to import from other countries. Japan lacks in most of the mineral resources, so she imports minerals from different corners of the world.

Essay # Occurrence of Minerals :

Minerals generally occur in four main ways depending on the geological set-up under which they are formed:

(a) In Lodes and Veins:

Cracks and fissures in different types of igneous intrusions become veins and lodes of metallic minerals of significant economic importance. Areas studded with ancient crystalline rocks that have greatly suffered from re­peated tectonic movements often contain veins and lodes in great numbers, en­riched with valuable mineral deposits. Minerals may be found in the metamorphic aureole of some metamorphic intrusions. Many of the major metallic miner­als like tin, silver, copper, zinc and lead are obtained from veins and lodes.

(b) In Sedimentary Beds:

Some minerals occur in horizontal layers or strata. Coal and different iron are formed in this way, and are accumulated as a result of long periods of compression. Some other minerals like gypsum, potash salt and so­dium salt are formed through evaporation. Petroleum also occurs within the sedi­mentary beds of oceanic origin.

(c) In Alluvial Deposits:

Alluvial deposits also contain minerals, usually at the bases of hills or in valley bottoms. Minerals like gold, tin, platinum are resistant to weathering and are thus carried down-slope and deposited within alluvial depos­its at the based of hills.

(d) In Weathering Products:

Deep weathering products also contain some of the valuable mineral deposits. Bauxite is formed by the deep-seated weathering of rocks under hot and humid tropical climate, having a distinct rainfall regime. Other minerals such as iron, nickel and manganese may also occur within weath­ering substances but are of little economic significance.

Essay # Physical and Economic Conditions of Mining :

A great many physical and economic factors affect the exploration of mineral resources in various parts of the world. These are equally important because a country may have good physical setting for mineralogical exploitation but may be deficient in the essential economic environment.

Africa is still a backward continent not because of its adverse setting for minera­logical exploitation but more importantly because of its economic backwardness, lack of capi­tal, dearth of technological skill etc.

Thus, the physical and economic conditions necessary for mining can be grouped in the following way:

A. Physical Conditions:

(i) The size of the deposit.

(ii) The depth of occurrence.

(iii) The structural formation.

(iv) The richness of deposits.

(v) The location of deposits.

B. Economic Conditions:

(i) The cheap and abundant supply of labour.

(ii) The availability of capital.

(iii) The method of exploitation of minerals.

(iv) The existing method of transportation and its efficiency.

(v) The nature of demand of minerals both within the country and abroad.

Essay # Classification of Minerals :

The wide variety of minerals that have been explored by man to satisfy his needs may accordingly be classified into the following groups:

(i) Power minerals: coal, petroleum and natural gas.

(ii) Precious metallic minerals: gold, silver and platinum.

(iii) Industrial metallic minerals: iron ore.

(iv) Ferro-alloy metallic minerals: manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, cobalt, nickel.

(v) Non-ferrous metallic minerals: copper, tin, aluminium.

(vi) Non-metallic minerals: salt, sulphur, potash, asbestos.

(vii) Building materials and stones: sandstone, limestone, marble.

Related Articles:

• Mineral Resources: it’s Meaning, Use and Exploitation
• Usage and Major Sources of Minerals Resources available in India

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Mineral Resources Essays

A comparative analysis of environmental conditions and policies in drc and australia: mineral resources and sustainability, popular essay topics.

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Essay on Conservation of Natural Resources for Students and Children

500+ words essay on conservation of natural resources.

Natural resources are something that is occurring naturally on Earth. It forms an indispensable part of our lives. It comprises of air, water, sunlight, coal , petroleum, natural gas, fossil fuels, oil, etc. However, they are exploited by humans for economic gain. Natural resources are at depletion because of the overuse. Some of these resources are available in abundance with the capability to renew. On the other hand, some are non-renewable . Thus, it demands a responsible behavior for the conservation so as to ensure their sustainability.

Why Conserve Natural Resources?

Human beings depend upon the natural resources for their development activities. If the resources are not used wisely, it would create an imbalance in the environment. Thus would head us in opposition to an eco-friendly atmosphere. The need for conservation arises from the significance of natural resources. It is as follows-

• Water is a renewable natural resource . We use it for drinking, producing electricity, irrigation, in various industries and for a number of activities. Its scarcity would cause loss of vegetation, adverse effect on flora and fauna, erosion of soil, etc.
• Plants and animals provide a wide range of industrial and biological materials. Also, it assists in the manufacturing of medicine and for various other uses.
• It takes millions of years for the formation of natural resources.
• Fossil fuels are of great importance. A lot of energy is produced from coal, oil and natural gas all of which are fossil fuels.
• Forest is the most important natural resource which helps in economic development . Forest provides paper, furniture, timber, medicine, gum, etc. Also, it maintains a balance in the ecosystem. Moreover, it prevents soil erosion and protects wildlife.
• Land resources support natural vegetation, wildlife, transport. The land also provides us food, cloth, shelter, and other basic needs.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Ways to Conserve Natural Resources

Different ministries of the Government, national and international agencies have been working for the purpose of conserving the natural resources .

• Environment education must be imparted by including the same in the curricula of the schools.
• National Parks are making an effort for the safety of the natural resources.
• By reducing, reusing and recycling of non-renewable resources.
• Non-human species must be disturbed only to meet the basic needs.
• Planting of more and more trees to save our forest resources.
• Seeking alternatives to non-renewable resources.
• By increased use of bio-gas and bio-fuels.
• By preventing the dumping of industrial wastes into the river bodies. This is a measure to protect the rich marine life.
• Overgrazing must be prevented. Also, poaching of animals must be controlled.
• Practicing crop rotation techniques helps in maintaining the fertility of the soil.
• Burning of fossil fuels emits carbon-di-oxide which is a major greenhouse gas. It is responsible for the greenhouse effect. Thus, the burning of fossil fuels must be controlled.

These are some of the measures which we can undertake for the conservation of natural resources. As Human- beings, we have a social responsibility to fulfill towards nature. Thus, while using resources, we shall follow the principle of sustainable development.

Natural resources are a present for the creation. These help in satisfying the human needs to its fullest. Furthermore, the rational use of natural resources maintains the earth’s atmosphere. Also, the wise use leads to protection of bio-diversity. Humans cannot imagine their lives without natural resources. Thus, the conservation of the same is essential.

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Essay on Natural Resources in Nepal: An Overview

Introduction to Natural Resources in Nepal

Nepal is a land-locked country situated in the Himalayas between India and Tibet. The country is known for its stunning natural beauty, with majestic mountain ranges, pristine forests, and rolling hills. Natural resources are an integral part of the economy and culture of Nepal, providing both livelihoods and recreational opportunities for its citizens. From forests and water to minerals and wildlife, Nepal is blessed with a rich abundance of resources that have the potential to contribute significantly to its development.

Table of Contents

In this essay, we will take a closer look at the natural resources in Nepal, including their types, distribution, and importance. We will also examine the challenges that Nepal faces in managing these resources effectively and the efforts being made to conserve them. This essay aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the natural resources in Nepal and their role in the country’s economy and environment.

Importance of Natural Resources for Nepal’s Economy

Nepal is a country that is rich in natural resources, including water, forests, minerals, and fertile land. These resources are vital to the economic development of the country and play a crucial role in the lives of millions of people. In this article, we will discuss the importance of natural resources for Nepal’s economy.

Forests and Natural Beauty: Nepal is home to a diverse range of forest types and vegetation, making it a popular tourist destination. The country’s forests provide vital ecosystem services, including watershed protection, carbon sequestration, and habitat for wildlife. In addition, the natural beauty of the forests is a major draw for tourists, generating significant revenue for the country.

Agriculture : Agriculture is the backbone of Nepal’s economy and a significant source of livelihood for millions of people. The country’s fertile land, abundant water resources, and favorable climate conditions make it ideal for agriculture. Agriculture contributes to the country’s GDP, providing food, fiber, and other essential products.

Hydropower: Nepal is known for its abundant water resources and has the potential to generate substantial amounts of hydropower. Hydropower is a clean and renewable source of energy that can contribute to economic growth and reduce dependence on imported fuels. The development of hydropower projects has the potential to create jobs, attract investment, and improve energy security.

Minerals: Nepal is rich in minerals, including iron ore, coal, limestone, and other minerals. The exploitation of these minerals can provide a significant boost to the country’s economy, creating jobs, increasing government revenue, and attracting investment. However, it is important to ensure that mining activities are carried out in an environmentally sustainable manner.

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In conclusion, natural resources play a crucial role in Nepal’s economy. The country’s forests, fertile land, water resources, and minerals provide vital ecosystem services and support the livelihoods of millions of people. By leveraging these resources, the country has the potential to achieve sustainable economic growth and improve the quality of life for its citizens.

Types of Natural Resources in Nepal

Water Resources: Nepal is known for its abundant water resources with numerous rivers, lakes and glaciers. Some of the major rivers in Nepal include the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra, which are crucial for agriculture, fishing, and hydropower generation.

Forest Resources: Forests cover about 30% of the total land area of Nepal and provide a wide range of benefits to the country, including fuelwood, timber, medicinal plants, and wildlife habitat.

Mineral Resources: Nepal is rich in minerals such as limestone, iron ore, coal, magnesium, and gold. These resources are essential for the construction, manufacturing, and energy industries.

Agricultural Resources: Nepal is a predominantly agricultural country, with over 80% of its population relying on agriculture for their livelihood. Rice, wheat, maize, and millet are some of the major crops grown in the country.

Wildlife Resources: Nepal is home to a diverse range of wildlife species, including tigers, rhinos, elephants, and monkeys. These resources are crucial for ecotourism, which provides a significant source of income for local communities.

Hydro Power Resources: Nepal has significant potential for hydropower generation, with numerous rivers and streams flowing through the country. This renewable energy source provides a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels and is an important contributor to the country’s economy.

Cultural and Heritage Resources: Nepal is famous for its rich cultural and heritage resources, including monuments, temples, and palaces. These resources are valuable for tourism and play an important role in preserving the country’s cultural identity.

Challenges faced by Nepal in Managing its Natural Resources

Nepal is a landlocked country in South Asia, rich in diverse and abundant natural resources. However, despite having a plethora of natural resources, Nepal faces numerous challenges in managing them effectively. Some of the major challenges faced by Nepal in managing its natural resources are discussed below.

• Limited Awareness: Nepal has a large rural population, where most people are illiterate and lack awareness about the importance of natural resources. This leads to over-exploitation and destruction of natural resources, which affects the country’s overall development.
• Lack of Government Support: The government of Nepal lacks adequate financial and technical resources to effectively manage natural resources. There is also a lack of political will to implement conservation and sustainable management programs, which results in the mismanagement of natural resources.
• Corruption: Corruption is a major challenge in Nepal, and this also extends to the management of natural resources. Lack of transparency in the allocation and management of resources often leads to their exploitation and destruction, leading to an imbalance in the ecosystem.
• Unplanned Development: Unplanned development activities such as deforestation, illegal logging, mining, and other commercial activities often cause severe damage to the environment and natural resources. This results in degradation of the environment, reducing the capacity of natural resources to provide benefits to the local communities.
• Climate Change: Climate change is a major challenge to the management of natural resources in Nepal. Changes in the pattern of rainfall and temperature affect agriculture, forestry, water resources, and other ecosystem services, which impacts the livelihoods of local communities.
• Geographical Challenges: Nepal’s mountainous geography poses a significant challenge to the management of natural resources. The country’s inaccessible terrain makes it difficult for the government to monitor and enforce conservation and sustainable management programs.

In conclusion, Nepal faces numerous challenges in managing its natural resources, but with effective government support, increased awareness, and the implementation of sustainable management programs, these challenges can be overcome. Effective natural resource management is crucial for the country’s overall development and the well-being of its people.

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Role of Government in Preserving Natural Resources in Nepal

The government of Nepal plays a crucial role in preserving the country’s natural resources, which are essential for the sustainable development and well-being of its people. Natural resources in Nepal include forests, water, minerals, and wildlife, among others. These resources provide numerous benefits, such as providing livelihoods, maintaining ecological balance, and conserving biodiversity.

Forests : Forests cover approximately 37% of Nepal’s land area and are crucial for maintaining the country’s ecological balance. The government has implemented various measures to protect forests and prevent deforestation. For example, the Forest Act of 1993 prohibits the unauthorized felling of trees, and the government has established protected areas, such as national parks and wildlife reserves, to conserve wildlife and forests. Additionally, the government has launched programs to promote sustainable forest management, such as community forestry, where local communities are involved in the management and conservation of forests.

Water: Nepal has abundant water resources, including rivers, lakes, and glaciers, which are essential for agriculture, industry, and drinking water. The government has implemented various measures to conserve and manage water resources, such as the Water Resource Act of 1992 and the National Water Plan of 1992. These laws and policies aim to ensure equitable access to water and prevent water pollution.

Minerals: Nepal has rich deposits of minerals, such as limestone, quartz, and iron ore, which are essential for various industries, including construction, manufacturing, and energy. The government has implemented various measures to manage mineral resources, such as the Mines and Minerals Act of 1992, which regulates the exploration, exploitation, and conservation of minerals. Additionally, the government has established the Department of Mines and Geology to oversee the management of mineral resources and ensure sustainable and responsible mining practices.

Wildlife: Nepal is home to a rich diversity of wildlife, including rare and endangered species, such as the Bengal tiger and the one-horned rhinoceros. The government has established various protected areas, such as national parks and wildlife reserves, to conserve wildlife and prevent illegal hunting and poaching. Additionally, the government has launched programs to conserve wildlife, such as ecotourism, which generates income for local communities and supports conservation efforts.

In conclusion, the government of Nepal plays a critical role in preserving the country’s natural resources, which are essential for the sustainable development and well-being of its people. The government has implemented various measures, such as laws and policies, protected areas, and programs to promote sustainable management and conservation of natural resources. The government’s role in preserving natural resources is crucial for ensuring their long-term sustainability and the well-being of future generations.

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Community-Based Natural Resource Management in Nepal

Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) is a critical approach to the sustainable management of natural resources in Nepal. This method of resource management is based on the principle of empowering local communities to participate in the management and decision-making process of the natural resources that affect their lives. The aim of CBNRM is to balance the interests of the local communities, governments, and businesses to ensure that the resources are used for the benefit of all stakeholders.

In Nepal, CBNRM has been implemented in various forms to conserve and manage the country’s vast natural resources, including forests, wildlife, water resources, and land. CBNRM is based on the idea of decentralizing the management of natural resources to the local communities. This approach has been successful in conserving and sustaining the resources while promoting the economic development of the communities.

The government of Nepal has been promoting CBNRM as a means of achieving sustainable development. The government has established various laws, policies, and institutions to support the implementation of CBNRM. For example, the Forest Act 1993 and the Community Forest Management Regulation of 1995 provide the legal framework for the management of community forests.

In addition, the government has established the Community-based Natural Resource Management Program (CBNRMP) to provide technical and financial support to communities in their efforts to manage natural resources. The program has been successful in creating a collaborative relationship between the communities, the government, and the private sector to conserve and manage the resources.

The success of CBNRM in Nepal is evident from the increase in the number of community-based organizations (CBOs) that are engaged in the management of natural resources. CBOs have been established in various regions of the country, and they play a critical role in the management of resources, including the protection of forests, wildlife, and water resources.

In conclusion, CBNRM is a critical approach to the sustainable management of natural resources in Nepal. The government, local communities, and the private sector must work together to ensure the successful implementation of CBNRM. This will ensure that the resources are used for the benefit of all stakeholders, including the preservation of the environment and the promotion of economic development.

Opportunities for Sustainable Development through Natural Resources in Nepal

Nepal is a country rich in natural resources and has the potential to become a leader in sustainable development. From forests to mineral resources, water resources to wildlife, Nepal has the potential to provide a high quality of life to its citizens while also preserving the environment for future generations.

One of the most significant opportunities for sustainable development in Nepal is the exploitation of its forests. With over 60% of its land area covered by forests, Nepal is one of the most forested countries in the world. These forests provide a vital source of livelihood for millions of people and are also a critical carbon sink. By promoting sustainable forestry practices and utilizing forest products, Nepal can protect its forests while also generating income and creating jobs.

Another opportunity for sustainable development in Nepal is the utilization of its abundant water resources. With numerous rivers and lakes, Nepal has the potential to become a leader in hydroelectric power production. This not only provides a clean and renewable source of energy, but also creates jobs and drives economic growth.

Mineral resources, such as iron, copper, gold and mica, are also abundant in Nepal. The development of these resources can provide a significant boost to the economy and provide employment opportunities. However, it is important to ensure that this development is sustainable and does not harm the environment.

Nepal’s wildlife is also a major opportunity for sustainable development. With a wide range of flora and fauna, Nepal is home to many species that are found nowhere else in the world. By promoting sustainable wildlife tourism, Nepal can protect its unique wildlife while also generating income.

In conclusion, Nepal has numerous opportunities for sustainable development through the use of its natural resources. From forests to water resources to mineral resources, Nepal has the potential to provide a high quality of life for its citizens while also preserving the environment for future generations. By promoting sustainable practices and utilizing these resources wisely, Nepal can become a leader in sustainable development.

Conclusion and Recommendations for Sustainable Use of Natural Resources in Nepal.

In conclusion, Nepal is a country rich in natural resources, including forests, water resources, minerals, and wildlife. The sustainable use of these resources is crucial for the long-term economic and ecological health of the country. However, the current methods of resource extraction and use are unsustainable, and have led to environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, and increased poverty.

To ensure the sustainable use of natural resources in Nepal, the following recommendations should be implemented:

• Development of sustainable resource management policies: Nepal should establish and enforce policies that promote sustainable resource management practices, including limiting over-extraction, reducing waste, and promoting efficient use.
• Promotion of eco-friendly technologies: Encouraging the use of environmentally friendly technologies and practices can help reduce the impact of resource extraction and use on the environment.
• Community involvement: Engaging local communities in the management and protection of natural resources can help ensure that resources are used sustainably, and that the benefits of resource use are shared fairly.
• Education and awareness: Raising awareness about the importance of sustainable resource use among the general public is crucial to ensure that people understand the impact of their actions on the environment.
• Investment in renewable energy: Investing in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power can help reduce the dependence on non-renewable resources, while promoting sustainable development.

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In conclusion, the sustainable use of natural resources is essential for the long-term prosperity and well-being of Nepal and its people. By implementing these recommendations, Nepal can ensure that its rich natural resources are used in a responsible and sustainable manner, for the benefit of present and future generations.

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1528 words free sample essay on the mineral resources of India

India is rich in various kinds of minerals. These minerals are stored mainly in the south India plateaus. Almost no mineral is available in the northern plains. The minerals like iron-ore, manganese, chromite, mica, limestone, coal etc. are chiefly available in abundance in India.

But the minerals like gold, silver, copper, mineral oil etc. are not available according to our demand. Some national organisations like the Geological Survey of India and the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (O.N.G.C.) have been constituted to investigate the mineral resources of India.

The mineral resources of India may be divided into three categories, such as: (a) Metallic minerals, (b) Non-metallic minerals and (c) Mineral fuel.

(a) Metallic minerals:

Iron-ore, manganese, chromite, bauxite etc. are the chief metallic minerals available in India.

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India occupies the 4th position in the world in production of iron-ore. The principal iron mines of India are in Bihar, Orissa, Goa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The famous iron mines are at Nuamundi, Gua and Badjamda in Singhbjum district of Bihar, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and Cuttack districts of Orissa and Kudremukh and Hospet district of Karnafaka.

Iron-ores are also mined at Salem of Tamilnadu, Chandrapur and Ratnagiri of Maharashtra, Durg and Bastar of Madhya Pradesh and Kurnool and Nellore districts of Andhra Pradesh. After fulfilling the demands of the iron and steel plants of the country, we export the balance ores to Japan, Norway, and Sweden etc. India earns a good deal of foreign exchange out of this export.

It is used in making steel. India occupies the fourth position in the world in the production of manganese. The manganese mines are located at Nagpur and Ratnagiri of Maharashtra, Balaghat and Chhindwara of Madhya Pradesh, Singhbhum of Bihar and the districts of Sundargarh, Koraput, Kalahandi and Bolangir of Orissa. About half of the total output of manganese is exported from India to the countries like U.S.A., U.K., Japan, West Germany and France.

It is used in steel industry and leather industry. Cuttack and Keonjhar districts of Orissa, Bandra and Ratnagiri of Maharashtra, Singhbhum of Bihar, Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, Mysore and Hassan of Karnataka and the district of Salem of Tamilnadu are famous for chromite mines.

It is a very valuable mineral. A small quantity of gold is available in India. Gold is mined at Kolar and Hutti of Karnataka and at Ramagiri in the district of Anantapur of Andhra Pradesh. Gold also occurs at Nigeria of Tamilnadu, Kozhikode of Kerala and Jhun Jhun district of Rajasthan. Gold serves as the most vital element of international banking. It controls the country’s monetary system as it is the accepted standard of foreign exchange.

It is very much necessary in electrical industries. It is also used as an alloy to make brass utensils. The chief copper mines of India are located at Mosabani and Patharagarh of Bihar and Khetri of Rajasthan. In addition to it copper deposits are also located at Balaghat of Madhya Pradesh. Jhun Jhun and Alwar of Rajasthan and Chitradoorg district of Karnataka.

Aluminium metal is produced from the bauxite ore. India is self-sufficient in production of this mineral-ore. Bauxite occurs at Lohardaga and Maidanpat of Bihar, Bhawnagar and Junagarh of Gujarat, Surguja and Raigarh of Madhya Pradesh, Belgaon of Karnataka, Chandgiri, Panchapattamali and Gandhamardan of Orissa.

Lead, zinc and silver:

These minerals are available in small quantities in India. Lead and zinc are mined at Zawar of Rajasthan. Lead mines are also located at Kalimati of Bihar. Silver is collected from Sawar of Rajasthan and from the gold mines at Kolar and Hutti of Karnataka. Besides, it is known that these metals are also deposited in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa and Sikkim.

(b) Non-metallic minerals:

Limestone, mica and gypsum are the main non-metallic minerals produced in India. These are mainly used in iron and steel, cement and electric industries.

It is mainly used in iron and steel and cement industries. Limestone mines are located at Biramitrapur and Dunguri of Orissa. Katri and Reba of Madhya Pradesh, Rohtasgarh of Bihar and Bundi and Jodhpur of Rajasthan. Moreover, limestone is also available in the States of Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka.

Mica is indispensable in electrical industries Mica mines are located at Hazaribag, Gaya and Mangy districts of Bihar, Nellor and.Guddur of Andhra Pradesh and Bhilwara, Jeypore and Ajmer districts of Rajasthan. The Kodarma Copper Mines of Hazaribag districts are famous in India. India occupies the first position in the world in mica production.

Gypsum is used in paper, fertilizer, cement and chemical industries. Gypsum mines are located at Tiruchinapalli of Tamilnadu, Jodhpur, Bikanir and Jaisalmir of Rajasthan, besides, gypsum is also found in some areas of Jammu and Kashmir and Tamilnadu.

(c) Mineral Fuel:

The minerals used as fuel to supply energy are called as ‘mineral fuel’. The most important of those are coal, mineral oil and nuclear energy minerals.

Coal has been formed out of the fossils of the forests which were buried in the interior of the earth in very ancient age. It occurs in the layers of rocks. Coal is classified into four categories on the basis of its carbon content and heating capacity. They are; Anthracite, Bituminous, Lignite and Peat. Anthracite coal has the maximum carbon content and heating capacity.

So it is the best quality of coal. Peat has the minimum carbon content and it is an inferior grade of coal. The bi-products of coal are coal-tar, ammonia, different kinds of paints and chemicals. Thermal electricity is generated in thermal power station by using coal as the fuel.

Bihar produces the maximum quantity of coal in India. The main coal fields of the country are located at Jharia, Bokaro and Dhanbad of Bihar, Ranging and Burdhwan of West Bengal, Sahadol and Surguza of Madhya Pradesh, Adilabad and Karim Nagar of Andhra Pradesh and Talcher and Rampur of Orissa. Besides, coal-mines are also located in Maharashtra, Assam, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Mineral Oil:

Mineral oil is deposited in the interior of the earth, being mixed with water, natural gas and other materials in the sedimentary rock layers. It is available both in land and in the continental shelves of seas. It is pumped out of the earth’s interior. It is refined in the refineries and petrol, diesel, kerosene; vaseline, paraffin etc. are produced out of it.

Crude oil is pumped out of the wells of Digboi and Naharkatiya of Assam, Ankleshwar and Kosamba of Gujarat and the Mumbai High on the continental shelf area off-coast Maharashtra, about 176 kms. North-west of Mumbai. Recently oil exploration and production have been experimentally started in the deltas of the Knavery and the Godavari rivers in the east coast of India.

India is deficient in oil-production. So it is dependent on imports of crude oil to the extent of 65 per cent to feed the refineries and meet the demand of the country. There are many oil refineries to refine the crude oil produced in the country and imported from abroad. The important refineries are located at Haldia of West Bengal, Guahati and Digboi of Assam. Mathura of Uttar Pradesh, Barauni of Bihar, Mumbai (Trombay) of Maharashtra, Koyali of Gujarat. Visakhapatnam of Andhra Pradesh and Cochin of Kerala.

Nuclear Energy Minerals:

The radio-active minerals like uranium, thorium, ilmenite, monazite etc. are known as nuclear energy minerals. These minerals are used as fuels for generation of atomic energy. Uranium is available at Jaduguda in Singhbhum district of Bihar. Thorium occurs in Bihar and Rajasthan. Limonite and monazite are obtained from the sands of the sea coasts of Kerala, Orissa and Tamilnadu. Rare earth (from which monazite is obtained) is collected from Ganja coast of Orissa.

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