Earth Science Mineral Resources Flashcards
-Naturally Occurring of metals present in the earth’s crust are called minerals
-All minerals are note ores
-Ex. Clay is the mineral of aluminum
Mineral
-Minerals which can be used to obtain the metal profitably are called ores
-All ores are essentially minerals too
-Ex. Bauxite and Cryolite are the main ores of Aluminum
Ore
- Are naturally-occurring materials that can be profitably mined.
-It can be a certain mineral or rock, metallic or non-metallic, depending on the economic requirement.
-A deposit is considered a potential ore body if its localized abundance is greater than its average abundance or distribution on the Earth’s crust.
Ores
A rock or mineral is considered an ore based on:
- Overall chemical composition
- Percentage of extractable resource with respect to its total volume
- Market value of the resource
HOW ORES ARE LOCATED, MINED AND PROCESSED:
Geologic Formations
-Allows extraction of ores that are close to Earth’s surface.
-Overlying rock is blasted and the rock that contains the valuable minerals is placed in a truck and taken to a refinery.
-It includes open-pit mining and mountaintop removal.
-Other methods of surface mining include strip mining, placer mining, and dredging.
-Strip mining is like open pit mining but with material removed along a strip.
Surface Mining
What are the types of surface mining
-Placer Mining
-Strip Mining
-Dredging
-Determines an ore’s value.
The total cost of extraction depends on the location of the deposit,
-its concentration, its depth from the surface,
-its scope and the technologies that must be used to extract and process the material
Profitability
-Is mined for a variety of industrial uses.
-Copper, an excellent conductor of electricity, is used as electrical wire.
-Copper is also used in construction. It is common material in pipes and plumbing material.
Copper Ore
-Has been mined for thousands of years.
-Iron, the second-most abundant metal on Earth, is the main component of steel.
-Steel is a strong, valuable building material.
-Iron is used in everything from glass to fertilizer to the solid-rocket boosters once used for the space shuttle to leave Earth’s atmosphere.
Iron Ore
Are often associated with particular ores. Aluminum, for example, is usually found in the ore called bauxite. Aluminum found in bauxite is used in containers, cosmetics, and medicines.
Metals
-Is used to recover ores that are deeper into Earth’s surface.
-Miners blast and tunnel into rock to gain access to the ores.
-How underground mining is approached
— from above, below, or sideways
— depends on the placement of the ore body, its depth,
-the concentration of ore,
-and the strength of the surrounding rock.
-It is very expensive and dangerous.
-Fresh air and lights must also be brought into the tunnels for the miners, and accidents are far too common.
Underground Mining
-When miners find rock containing mineral ore, they first extract the rock from the earth.
-This can be a huge process, sometimes displacing millions of tons of dirt.
-The rock is then crushed by powerful machinery.
-Metal is extracted from the crushed ore by one of two major methods: smelting or electrolysis.
ORE EXTRACTION:
-Uses heat to separate the valuable metal from the rest of the ore.
-Usually requires a reduction agent, or another chemical, to separate metal from its ore.
-In the earliest smelters, the reduction agent was carbon in the form of charcoal.
- Charcoal burned with hematite ore, for instance, smelts iron.
- Smelting
-Separates metal from ore by using acid and electricity.
-Aluminum, which burns at a very high temperature, is extracted from bauxite by electrolysis.
-Bauxite is placed in a pool of acid, and an electrical current is run through the pool.
-The electrons in the current attach to oxygen and hydrogen, the other elements in bauxite, leaving the aluminum.
- Electrolysis
