Part 2: Water, Soil, Mineral & Rock and Energy

is the most heavily used metal and it is also one of the most common metals.

is another relatively common metal, and it is the second most widely used.

is primarily used for electrical applications because it is an excellent conductor of electricity.

is used in batteries; among its many other applications, it is a component of many solders and is used in paints and ceramics.

coating on steel cans keeps the cans from rusting, and zinc is also used in the manufacture of brass and other alloys

is used not only for jewelry, in the arts, and in commerce, but also in the electronics industry and in dentistry. It is particularly valued for its resistance to tarnishing.

principal single use is for photographic materials (for example, film), and the next broadest applications are in electronics.

is an excellent catalyst, a substance that promotes chemical reactions.

may be recovered from petroleum during refining, from volcanic deposits and from evaporites.

or rock salt, is used principally as a source of the sodium and chlorine of which it is composed, and secondarily for road salt, either directly or through the production of other salts from it

is essential to the manufacture of plaster, Portland cement, and wallboard for construction.

are key ingredients of the synthetic fertilizers

is not a single mineral, but a group of layered hydrous silicates that are formed at low temperature, commonly by weathering, and that are abundant in sedimentary deposits in the United States.

were used in construction, especially in making cement and concrete

was used in industry, particularly for glassmaking

One might replace a very rare metal with a more abundant one. The extent to which this is likely to succeed is limited, since reserves of most metals are quite limited.

are generally much less apparent than surface mines. They disturb a relatively small area of the land’s surface close to the principal shaft(s).

consist of either open-pit mining (including quarrying) or strip-mining.

is practical when a large, three-dimensional ore body is located near the surface. Most of the material in the pit contains the valuable commodity and is extracted for processing.

more often used to extract coal than mineral resources, is practiced most commonly when the material of interest occurs in a layer near and approximately parallel to the surface.

usually involves regarding the area to level the spoil banks and to provide a more gently sloping land surface; restoring the soil; replanting grass, shrubs, or other vegetation

is commonly used to extract gold from its ore

to extract metals from ores may, depending on the ores involved and on emission controls, release arsenic, lead, mercury, and other potentially toxic elements along with exhaust gases and ash

also releases the sulfur oxide gases that are implicated in the production of acid rain