Apes Ch. 15 Flashcards
Core
Core
Tectonic plates
Huge rigid plates able to move extremely slowly across the earth’s surface.
Convergent plate boundaries
When internal forces push two plates together
Divergent plate boundary
Area where the earth’s lithospheric plates move apart in opposite directions.
Transform fault
Where plates slide and grind past one another along a fracture in the lithosphere.
Weathering
The physical, chemical, and biological processes that break down rocks and minerals into smaller particles that can help build soil.
Frost wedging
The mechanical breakup of rock caused by the expansion of freezing water in cracks and crevices
Mass wasting
the geomorphic process by which soil, sand, regolith, and rock move downslope typically as a mass
Ore
A rock that contains a large enough concentration of a particular mineral.
Rock
A solid combination of one or more minerals that is part of the earth’s crust.
Igneous rock
rocks that form directly from magma
Sedimentary rock
rocks that form when sediments (mud, sand, or gravel) are compressed by overwhelming sediments
Metamorphic rock
form when sedimentary rocks, igneous rocks are subjected to high temperature and pressure
Strip mining
Strip mining is useful and economical for extracting mineral deposits that lie close to the earth’s surface in large horizontal beds.
Mountaintop removal
Another surface mining method is mountaintop removal. In the Appalachian Mountain area of the United States, where this form of mining is prominent, explosives, large power shovels, and huge machines called draglines are used to remove the top of a mountain and expose seams of coal, which are then removed.
Open pit mining
The type of surface mining used depends on two factors: the resource being sought and the local topography. In open-pit mining machines dig holes and remove ores (of metals such as iron, copper, and gold), sand, gravel, and stone (such as limestone and marble).
Smelting
Heating ores to release metals is called smelting.
Subsurface mining
After suitable mineral deposits are located, several different mining techniques are used to remove them, depending on their location and type. Shallow deposits are removed by surface mining, and deep deposits are removed by subsurface mining.
Surface mining
After suitable mineral deposits are located, several different mining techniques are used to remove them, depending on their location and type. Shallow deposits are removed by surface mining.
Spoils
In surface mining, gigantic mechanized equipment strips away the overburden, the soil and rock overlying a useful mineral deposit. It is usually discarded as waste material called spoils.
tailings
Unwanted rock and other waste materials produced when a resource is removed from the earth by mining or other excavation.
a waste when ore undergoes processing
Gangue
waste rock that must be removed before a mineral can be used
The fraction of the ore containing waste minerals
In situ leaching
Injecting a solution into the ground to dissolve and extract the material of interest.
Depletion time
the time it takes to use up about 80% of the mineral reserves at a given rate
