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Minerals: A Nonrenewable Resource
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MINERALS
USES OF MINERALS
Minerals, elements
or compounds of elements that occur naturally in the Earth's crust, are
such a part of our daily lives that we often take them for granted.
Indeed, it is probably impossible for you to spend a day without ponent
of sulfuric acid is an indispensable industrial mineral with many
applications in the chemical industry. It is used to make plastics and
fertilizers and to refine oil. Other important minerals include platinum
mercury manganese and titanium.
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Human need and desire for minerals
have inline-need the course of history. Phoenicians and Romans
explored Britain in a search for tin. One of the first metals to be
used by humans, tin came into its own during the Bronze Age (3500 to
1000 B.c)
The Earth's minerals are elements or
(usually) compounds of elements and have precise chemical positions.
For example, sulfides are mineral compounds in which certain
elements are com-mud chemically with sulfur, and oxides are mineral
compounds in which elements arc combined chemically with oxygen. |
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Rocks are aggregates, or mixtures, of
minerals and have varied chemical compositions. An ore is nick that
contains large enough concentration of a particular mineral that the
mineral can be profitably mined and extracted. High-grade ores contain
relatively large amounts of particular minerals, whereas low-grade ores
contain lesser amounts.
Minerals can be metallic or nonmetallic.
Metals are minerals such as iron, aluminum, and copper, which are
malleable, lustrous, and good conductors of heat and electricity.
Nonmetallic minerals lack these characteristics; they include, stone,
salt, and phosphates.
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