essay on minerals and power resources
Answers
What are Mineral Resources?
Minerals are naturally occurring substances. They have a definite chemical composition. Minerals are formed in different types of geological environments, under varying conditions. You can identify and classify minerals on the basis of their physical properties such as colour, density, hardness. You can also identify them on the basis of their chemical properties like solubility. Now, we look at the various types of minerals.
Types of Minerals
On the basis of composition, we can classify minerals metallic and non-metallic types. This is because the minerals may or may not contain iron.
Metallic minerals
They contain metals in raw form. Metals are hard substances and are good conductors of heat and electricity. Therefore, they conduct heat and electricity and have lustre or shine. For example, iron ore and bauxite. Metallic minerals are of two types:
Ferrous minerals contain iron ore, manganese, and chromites.
Non-ferrous minerals do not contain iron. However, they could contain some other metals like gold, silver, copper or lead. Because they do not contain iron, they are non-ferrous.
Non-metallic minerals
They do not contain metals. Therefore, they are not good conductors of electricity and heat. For example, limestone, mica, gypsum, coal, and petroleum. So, how do we extract minerals from their ores? There are some processes that are used to extract minerals.
Extraction Of Minerals
Without proper extraction, minerals are of no use. Therefore, we must concentrate on proper methods for their extraction. The three extraction methods of minerals are mining, drilling, and quarrying.
Mining: It is the process of taking out minerals from rocks buried under the earth’s surface. The process of mining includes two methods: (a)Open cast mining, (b)Shaft mining
Drilling: Deep wells are bored to take minerals out. This process is called drilling.
Quarrying: In the process of quarrying, you simply dig out the minerals that lie near the surface. Therefore, you need to be careful while digging them as you could destroy their essential parts.