Mineral resources

Question 1

What is a mineral?

Answer 1

Minerals – Rocks are made of chemical substances called minerals. A mineral is a naturally occurring solid or liquid in the earths crust but not including coal or iron.

Question 2

What are ores?

Answer 2

Rocks containing naturally occurring minerals are known as ores

Question 3

What are ways to identify a mineral through their properties?

Answer 3

Main physical properties used to identify minerals are:
* Hardness – Hardness is assessed by comparing minerals using Mohs scale.
* Colour – is very useful when prospecting for minerals. E.G – gold shows up as a yellowish colour in rock and soil.
* Lustre – is how shiny the mineral is.
* Streak colour
Flame test - is another way to identify a mineral.

Question 4

What are mineral resources?

Answer 4

Mineral resources - Minerals that have been dug up and used are known as mineral resources.

Question 5

What are the four processes of obtaining minerals?

Answer 5

The process of obtaining minerals has four main steps which are:
* Exploration – the search for rocks containing minerals
* Mining – The removal of the resource from the ground
* Enrichment – this concentrates the recourse increasing how much there is of it in a particular volume of the mined mineral
* Extraction – Some metals need to be extracted. This process involves removing an unwanted element from the compound in which metal occurs.