Question

Explain the following terms in brief:
(a) Hard rock mining (b) Open pit mining
(c) Mineral
(d) Mineral fuel
(e) ore​

Answer 1

$\green{ \mathfrak{ \large{Answer}}}$

Hard Rock mining

Underground hard rock mining refers to various underground mining techniques used to excavate hard minerals, usually those containing metals such as ore containing gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, tin and lead, but also involves using the same techniques for excavating ores of gems such as diamonds or rubies. Soft rock mining refers to excavation of softer minerals such as salt, coal, or oil sands.

Open pit mining

Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open cut mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow.

This form of mining differs from extractive methods that require tunnelling into the earth, such as long wall mining. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or rocks are found near the surface. It is applied to ore or rocks found at the surface because the overburden is relatively thin or the material of interest is structurally unsuitable for tunnelling (as would be the case for sand, cinder, and gravel). In contrast, minerals that have been found underground but are difficult to retrieve due to hard rock, can be reached using a form of underground mining.

Mineral

In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure, that occurs naturally in pure form.

The geological definition of mineral normally excludes compounds that occur only in living beings. However some minerals are often biogenic (such as calcite) or are organic compounds in the sense of chemistry (such as mellite). Moreover, living beings often synthesize inorganic minerals (such as hydroxylapatite) that also occur in rocks.

The concept of mineral is distinct from rock, any bulk solid geologic material that is relatively homogeneous at a large enough scale. A rock may consist of one type of mineral, or may be an aggregate of two or more different types of minerals, spacially segregated into distinct phases.

Some natural solid substances without a definite crystalline structure, such as opal or obsidian, are more properly called mineraloids. If a chemical compound occurs naturally with different crystal structures, each structure is considered a different mineral species. Thus, for example, quartz and stishovite are two different minerals consisting of the same compound, silicon dioxide.

Mineral Fuel

The mineral fuels—coal, petroleum, and natural gas—may be described as a special type of economic deposit. Geochemically they represent the concentration of carbon and hydrogen by processes that were initially biological in nature. Coal is essentially the product of accumulation of land plants in large amounts, and petroleum and natural gas are the products of marine organisms (although the origin of some petroleum and natural gas under nonmarine conditions cannot be entirely excluded). The origin of petroleum and natural gas presents a more difficult problem than coal because they are fluids and thus are free to migrate from their place of origin.

Ore

Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit. Ore is extracted from the earth through mining and treated or refined, often via smelting, to extract the valuable metals or minerals. The grade of ore refers to the concentration of the desired material it contains. The value of the metals or minerals a rock contains must be weighed against the cost of extraction to determine whether it is of sufficiently high grade to be worth mining, and is therefore considered an ore.

❣Hope this helps you✌

Answer 2

Answer:

1.Underground hard rock mining refers to various underground mining techniques used to excavate hard minerals, usually those containing metals such as ore containing gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, tin and lead, but also involves using the same techniques for excavating ores of gems such as diamonds or rubies. Soft rock mining refers to excavation of softer minerals such as salt, coal, or oil sands.