Distribution, types and reserves of major minerals:

What are minerals?

A mineral is a substance obtained by mining.

Some minerals are abundant in the rocks of Earths crust such as Iron and bauxite (aluminium) while
others like gold, tin and copper are rarely found in ordinary rocks.

Describe the main types of formations in which the

minerals occur.
Minerals generally occur in rocks of these forms:
i. In igneous and metamorphic rocks minerals occur in the veins and the lodes. Major metallic minerals
like tin, copper, zinc and lead etc. are obtained from these veins and lodes.
ii. In sedimentary rocks minerals occur in layers. Coal and some forms of iron ore are found like this.
Minerals such as gypsum, potash salt and sodium salt are formed as a result of evaporation especially in arid
regions.
iii. In the decomposed surface rocks (a residual mass of weathered material) Bauxite is formed.
iv. In alluvial deposits or placer deposits minerals which are not corroded by water are found. Such as
Gold, silver, tin and platinum.
v. In ocean floor vast quantities of manganese nodules are found. Common salt, magnesium and bromine
are largely derived from ocean waters.

How do we classify minerals?

Minerals are classified as
a. Metallic minerals (metals)
- Ferrous Iron
- Non ferrous Copper, tin, lead, bauxite
- Precious metals Gold, silver
b. Non metallic minerals
- Used in industry Sulphur, salt
- Used in farming Potash, Phosphate, Nitrates, Calcium
- Energy Oil (petroleum), Coal
- Gems Diamond, emeralds

Where are these minerals found?

Metallic minerals are mainly found in two types of areas:

1. Region of old igneous rocks Baltic zone, Canadian shields, plateau block of Brazil, Africa,
India and Western Australia.
2. Areas of the young fold mountains where there have been great Earth movements example the
Andes in South America and Rockies in North America
The Non metallic minerals are wide spread and can be found in many different rocks and
geological formations.

The map below show the distribution of various minerals in the world:

What are mineral reserves?

A reserve is a know source of the mineral, which has not yet been mined. The mineral can be mined in the
future when they are needed.

What are the factors which play an important role in

affecting the economic viability of a reserve?
The factors are:
i. The concentration of mineral in the ore,
ii. The ease of extraction
iii. Closeness to the market.

Methods of search and extraction of rocks and minerals:

Mining may well have been the second of humankinds earliest endeavors, that agriculture was the first. The
two industries ranked together as the primary or basic industries of early civilization.
The stages involved in the process of mining are:
Prospecting
Prospecting, the first stage in the utilization of a mineral deposit is the search for ores or other valuable
minerals (coal or non-metallic). Because mineral deposits may be located either at or below the surface of
the earth, both direct and indirect prospecting techniques are employed.
Exploration
The second stage in the life of a mine, exploration, determines as accurately as possible the size and value of
a mineral deposit, utilizing techniques similar to but more refined than those used in prospecting.
Development
In the third stage, development, the work of opening a mineral deposit for exploitation is performed. With it
begins the actual mining of the deposit, now called the ore
Exploitation
Exploitation, the fourth stage of mining, is associated with the actual recovery of minerals from the earth in
quantity

Opencast mining
One of the methods of exploitation is opencast mining
Stages involved in opencast mining are:

Clearing the vegetation and removing the top soil.

Break up and loosen the rocks using machines and explosive.
Remove the loose rocks using diggers
Transport the loose rocks using trucks or railway wagons to the processing plant.

Note: This type of exploitation leaves a large hole in the ground.

After mining finishes, the mine area must undergo rehabilitation. Waste dumps are contoured to flatten them
out, to further stabilise them. If the ore contains sulfides it is usually covered with a layer of clay to prevent
access of rain and oxygen from the air, which can oxidise the sulfides to produce sulfuric acid, a
phenomenon known as acid mine drainage. This is then generally covered with soil, and vegetation is
planted to help consolidate the material.

Deep mining:
Another method of exploitation is deep mining:
If the mineral is only a little way below the surface, it may be possible to dig into the deposit by making
tunnels into the hillsides. However, the deeper the mineral lies the more difficult it is to discover and mine.
Deep mining involves:

Sinking a vertical shaft down to the rock layer containing minerals.

Making a horizontal tunnel following the mineral layer.
Extracting the minerals by digging done by miners and machine.
Bringing the loose rock from the mine and piling it up on waste heaps on the surface.
Transport it to the extraction plant.

Note:

This is more complex than surface mining (open cast) methods.

It requires more planning and finance
It is generally more selective and done on high grade deposits.
It is also very dangerous as the roof of the tunnels need to be supported.
The number of accidents and deaths are more in these.

Uses of rocks and minerals in industrial processes:

Many of the rocks of the earths crust are extremely useful. Some are quarried for use in construction and
road building. Hard rocks ingenious and metamorphic rocks are used in buildings. Since these rocks are
huge and of low value they are usually used very close to where they are extracted from.
Other rocks are used in industry as raw material in industrial purposes.
Metals:

Bauxite: The main source of aluminum. Aluminum is used in the United States in packaging,
transportation, and building.
Coal: One of the worlds major sources of energy. More than half of all the electrical energy that is
generated and used in the United States comes from coal.
Cobalt: Used in super alloys for jet engines, chemical paint driers, pigments, rechargeable batteries,
magnets, and cemented carbides for cutting tools.
Copper: Used in electric cables and wires, switches, plumbing, heating, roofing, and building
construction, chemical and pharmaceutical machinery, electroplated protective coatings and cooking
utensils.
Gold: Used in dentistry and medicine, in jewelry and arts, in medallions and coins, in ingots as a
store of value, for scientific and electronic instruments, as an electrolyte in the electro-plating
industry.
Lead: Used in lead batteries, gasoline tanks and solders, seals or bearings, used in electrical and
electronic applications, TV tubes, TV glass, construction, communications, protective coatings, in
ballast or weights, ceramics or crystal glass, tubes or containers, type metal, foil or wire, Xray and
gamma radiation shielding, soundproofing material in the construction industry, and ammunition.
Lithium: Lithium compounds are used in ceramics and glass, in primary aluminum production, in the
manufacture of lubricants and greases, rocket propellants, vitamin A synthesis, silver solders,
underwater buoyancy devices, and batteries.
Zinc : Used as a protective coating on steel, with copper to make brass, and as chemical compounds
in rubber and paints, used as a sheet zinc and for galvanizing iron, electroplating, metal spraying,
automotive parts, electrical fuses, anodes, dry cell batteries, fungicides, nutrition (essential growth
element), chemicals, roof gutter, engravers plates, cable wrappings, organ pipes, in pennies, primers,
paints, to protect ship hulls, in lubricating oils and greases. Zinc oxide is used in medicine, paints, as
an electrostatic and photoconductive agent in photocopying.

Non metals:
Potash : Used as a fertilizer, in medicine, in the chemical industry, and to produce decorative color
effects on brass, bronze, and nickel. Is an essential mineral for vegetable and animal life.
Sulfur : Used in the manufacture of sulfuric acid, fertilizers, chemicals, explosives, dyestuffs,
petroleum refining, vulcanization of rubber, fungicides.
Nitrates, phosphate and potash : used as fertilizers

What are the social, economic and environmental impacts of exploiting metal ores
(mineral extraction), of using metals and of recycling metals economic,
sociological and environmental issues?

Metal ores are obtained by mining/quarrying and that this involved digging up and processing large
amounts of rock.
Most ores are mined have to be concentrated before the metal is extracted and purified.
o This often results in lots of waste material that must be dealt with from an environment of
view.
This means that metal or mineral extraction results in problems and issues in balancing ecological,
environmental, economic, social advantage factors.
It doesn't matter whether you are mining and processing iron ore or limestone, many of the
advantages and disadvantages are common to these operations.
Advantages of exploiting own mineral resources:
o
o
o
o
o

Useful products can be made from metal to enhance our lives most consumer products we
take for granted i.e. we expect to have them at our disposal.
Valuable revenue if the mineral or its products are exported.
Jobs for people, especially new sources of employment in poor countries or areas of high
unemployment in developed countries.
Wages earned go into the local/national economy leading to improvements in schools, health
service and transport etc.
Increase in local facilities promoted e.g. transport systems, like roads, recreational and health
social facilities.

Disadvantages of exploitation of mineral resources and reduction of its social and

environmental impact:
o

o
o

Dust from miningquarrying or processing can be reduced by air filter and precipitation
systems and even hosing water on dusty areas or spoil heaps or carried away to somewhere
else via tall chimneys.
Scarring of the landscape from mining, quarrying, waste tips etc. as well as loss of wildlife
habitat.
Noise from process operation or transport of raw materials and products
(lorries/trucks/wagons).
Difficult to deal with, soundproofing often not practical, but operations can be
reduced for unsociable hours e.g. evening movement.
Pollution can be reduced by cleaning the 'waste' or 'used' air, water and waste gases etc. of
toxic or acidic materials e.g.
Toxic carbon monoxide from the blast furnace extraction of iron, it can be burnt as a
fuel, but it must not be released into the air unless converted to biologically harmless
carbon dioxide.
Sulphur dioxide gas from copper extraction of its sulphide ore is an irritating
poisonous gas which can also cause acid rain, but it can be converted to the useful,
therefore saleable, industrial chemical concentrated sulphuric acid, so you can remove
a harmful pollutant and recover back some of the metal extraction costs, good green
economics?
Acidic gases like sulphur dioxide can be removed by bubbling through an alkali
solution such as calcium hydroxide solution ('limewater') where it is neutralised and
oxidised to harmless calcium sulphate. Cleaning a gas in this way is called 'gas
scrubbing'.

Mining operations will disfigure the landscape BUT it can be reclaimed and 'landscaped' in
an attempt to restore the original flora and fauna. However in the case of a limestone quarry,
I'm afraid there is no way round the fact that huge chunks of beautiful hills get carted away if
we want to use it as useful mineral.

The cost of extracting and purifying metals is quite varied for several reasons.
o
o

If the ore is plentiful it is cheaper e.g. iron ore, but silver ores and gold are much rarer and on
that basis alone they would be a more valuable commodity.
Reduction of ores using coke (e.g. iron), made from cheap coal, is cheaper than the electricity
bill for extracting aluminium from its molten oxide by electrolysis, but different metals have
different properties best suited for particular and different uses.
Generally speaking, more reactive metals (like Al) are more costly to extract than less
reactive metals (like Fe) because of the different energy demands and ease of extraction,
which may sometimes be due to more costly technology.

RECYCLING a very good idea because mineral resources are limited and manufacturing costs of
many metals from their naturally occurring ores involves costly energy and environmental issues.
o

Collection of material to obtain metals from to recycle

Before any metals can be recycled the scrap metal must be collected.
The main problem is separating the useful metal from the rest of the rubbish.
e.g. in domestic recycling plants iron and steel objects can be plucked out with a
magnet, since most other materials are not magnetic.
The recycling process
e.g. scrap iron is added to newly extracted from a blast furnace being converted into
steel.
Why recycle metals? Reasons to recycle metals
Saves valuable finite natural mineral resources mineral sources cannot last forever!
Saves energy, so less fossil fuels burned,
Reduces a waste disposal problem e.g. less piles of rusting cars and reduces
environmental problems in general.
Any reduction in landfill waste sites is a blessing on the environment, so this
is now a real drive to recycle metals, plastics, glass and paper. Landfill rubbish
sites are source of environmental pollutions from toxic materials leaching out
and a health hazard from rotting decomposing organic material.
Apart from reducing the accumulation of waste, there are waste disposal
management issues e.g. how do store the waste? how dangerous is it? and
environmental scientists/technicians are needed to monitor possible pollution
of the surrounding air, water or land more costs!
It is less expensive than mining the original ore and extracting the metal, both these
processes are eliminated and far less energy is used overall, so on several counts it
will cost less money i.e. much more economic.
Example: The supply of copperrich ores is limited so it is important to recycle as much
copper as possible especially as demand for copper is growing as the economies of African
countries, India, China and Brazil etc. are rapidly developing and becoming increasingly
industrialised with the ensuing consumer demands for all the eg electrical products that we in
the West take for granted.