Ch. 15

Rainwater seepage through a mine or mine wastes carries sulfuric acid to nearby streams and groundwater.

Used when terrain is flat, a big machine removed the top mineral deposit.

Lower mantle of partly melted rock that flows and moves like plastic.

Lichens break down rock with chemicals and tree roots physically break rocks.

Using bacteria to remove a metal from ores while leaving environment undisturbed.

Small molecular spheres that have a variety of applications like medicine and cosmetics, part of nanotechnology revolution

Rock reacts with oxygen carbon dioxide moisture and acids to break it down.

Used on mountainous terrain, cuts terraces into sides of hills and is highly erodible afterwards.

Water collects in pores and cracks of rocks and expands, breaking it off.

Waste material left behind by ore.

Highly erodible bank of soil and rock left behind by contour strip mining.

Forms below or on earth’s surface when molten rock wells up from the upper mantle or deep crust, cools, and hardens. Like granite, and lava rock

Tectonic plates and the rigid part of the mantle.

Potato sized, cover about half of Pacific ocean floor.

When rock and soil masses become detached and move downhill under gravity, like rockslides, but can be slower.

Silicon, ceramics, plastics, and others, are replacing metals.

Preexisting rock is subjected to high temperatures, high pressure, chemical fluids, or a combination of these. Like anthracite, slate, and marble.

Dragline machinery and explosives destroy mountains, leaving behind waste and toxic substances like selenium, arsenic, and mercury.

Form at divergent plate boundary and have higher peaks and deeper canyons than the tallest mountains.

Move rocks in loops in the mantle like conveyor belts.

Continental rises over the oceanic plate, or continental plates both rise and create mountains.

Cyanide makes the gold leave the mountain and is harvested at the bottom, but is toxic and is often left behind.

How long it takes to use up a certain proportion of the reserves of a mineral at a given rate of use.

When ocean plates move away from one another.