Industrial Minerals and Fossil Fuels

Question 1

What is the main component of cement?

Answer 1

CaCO3

Question 2

Which mineral is commonly used as an industrial abrasive?

Answer 2

Diamond

Question 3

What is a major source of rare earth elements?

Answer 3

Carbonatites

Question 4

What type of coal has the highest carbon content?

Answer 4

Anthracite

Question 5

What is the major source rock for North Sea oil?

Answer 5

Kimmeridge Clay (Jurassic in age)

Question 6

What rock property is essential for an oil reservoir?

Answer 6

High magnetism

Question 7

Why are kimberlite pipes important in mineral exploitation?

Answer 7

They transport diamonds from the mantle to the surface

Question 8

What is the typical temperature range of the “oil window” where hydrocarbons are generated?

Answer 8

60-120 degrees Celsius

Question 9

What are some rocks used for building stone?

Answer 9

Granites, sandstone, limestone/ dolomite, marble and slate

Question 10

What are aggregates?

Answer 10

Crushed rock, used in building foundation and road building, its easy to mine but hard and inert, mined via open pits and plentiful

Question 11

What are sand and gravel used for and where are they found?

Answer 11

Used in concrete production and road building, found in river channels, their floodplains and alluvial fans and glacial deposits after being weathered or abraded from parent rock

Question 12

What is mortar?

Answer 12

Cement mixed with sand

Question 13

What is concrete?

Answer 13

Cement mixed with sand and gravel

Question 14

Summarise the cement production process.

Answer 14

Mine limestone, goes through crushing plant to make limestone blending which is mixed with coal stockpile, sinter at 1500C to produce CaO, goes to clinker storage where its mixed with gypsum to control setting time

Question 15

What are the components of glass? Why are they added?

Answer 15

Silica (SiO2), Soda (Na2O), Lime (CaO) and Alumina (Al2O3)
Silica has high melting temp, soda reduces the melting temp, lime increases the durability of the glass and alumina improves chemical resistance

Question 16

What are kimberlites?

Answer 16

Igneous rocks highly enriched in magnesium and volatiles (CO2 and H2O), they originate in the Earth’s mantle

Question 17

What is gold used for? What properties does it have?

Answer 17

Aerospace, electronics, jewellery and special alloys. Corrosion and chemical resistance

Question 18

What are the two main types of gold deposits?

Answer 18

Hydrothermal and placer

Question 19

How do hydrothermal deposits form?

Answer 19

Movement of mineral-containing fluid along fissures and away from a major heat source (igneous intrusion), till the minerals cool and precipitate out of the solution to form deposits, typically in order of solubility and melting point

Question 20

What are some gold minerals?

Answer 20

Native gold- most abundant, calaverite (AuTe2) and sylvanite ((AuAg)Te2)

Question 21

What are gold placer deposits?

Answer 21

Gold is weathered out of primary deposits and concentrated through density by flowing water to create these alluvial deposits

Question 22

What are the rare earth elements?

Answer 22

Light rare earth elements: Lanthanum-Europium
Heavy rare earth elements: yttrium + gadolinium- lutecium

Question 23

What kind of deposits do rare earth elements form?

Answer 23

Phosphates, silicates, carbonates, oxides and halides, they are NOT rare, however there are rare concentrations of economically viable deposits

Question 24

How is coal formed?

Answer 24

Through the decay of dead organic matter, through anaerobic, peat-like environments over millions of years

Question 25

What are some types of coal? How are they categorised?

Answer 25

Anthracite, bituminous, sub-bituminous and lignite. Categorised by coal content (order high-low)

Question 26

What are some of the impurities causing pollution associated with coal?

Answer 26

Clay minerals and other non-combustible impurities = ash, ammonium form NxOx, hydrogen sulphide and iron sulphide form SO2, NaCl causes corrosion in boiler plants and trace elements like Ge, As, U

Question 27

How are oil and gas formed?

Answer 27

Marine life dies and becomes buried by the ocean floor, mass amounts of heat and pressure over millions of years turn them into oil and gas

Question 28

What is natural gas composed of?

Answer 28

>99% methane and <1% ethane, propane, butane, plus CO2, H2S, N2, H2 and NH3

Question 29

What is petroleum?

Answer 29

A mixture of numerous hydrocarbon compounds

Question 30

What are seals?

Answer 30

Rocks that significantly reduce the onward migration of fluids in the subsurface

Question 31

What attributes do the best seals have?

Answer 31

Small pore size, ductile rocks, thick rock units with wide lateral extents. Usually mudstones, evaporites, chalks and crystalline lithologies

Question 32

What is the difference between primary, secondary and tertiary (enhanced) oil recovery?

Answer 32

In primary recovery, they drill and well and allow natural pressure to force the oil up to the surface, in secondary recovery they add a secondary well, which water is injected into, which pushes the less-dense oil up to the surface and in tertiary oil recovery, water and CO2 are pumped into the reservoir and the viscosity of the oil is reduced to improve recovery rates

Question 33

What is fractional distillation?

Answer 33

Heating of crude oil to higher temperatures to condense into liquid to form useful hydrocarbons, ie the separation of carbon chains by length

Question 34

How is gas recovered?

Answer 34

Piped from wells to process plants, S and H20 are removed, then they add the 'gas' smell, it is transmitted via high pressure lines

Question 35

What are some other oil sources?

Answer 35

Tar sands and oil shales

Question 36

What are some other gas sources?

Answer 36

Coalbed methane and shale gas

Question 37

What are oil shales?

Answer 37

Fine-grained rocks containing significant amounts of kerogen, formed in swamps and shallow marine environments. They're insoluble, contain a mixture of heavy hydrocarbons and can be converted to oil by heating above 500C

Question 38

What is coalbed methane?

Answer 38

CBM extracted by releasing pressure in coal seams, usually by natural gas production or by pumping water from the coal bed, reducing pressure causes gas to be released and extracted, most gas is adsorbed onto the surface of the coal

Question 39

What is shale gas?

Answer 39

Extracted from source rock- has naturally low permeability. The gas is held in fractures, pore spaces and adsorbed on to the organic material of shale, 'crack' the rock using hydraulic fracturing method 'fracking'. fracturing fluid, a combination of water and sometimes chemicals is pumped at high pressure into the rock to create narrow fractures that allow the gas to flow