1.
Colorado
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Colorado is a state in the United States encompassing most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the 50 United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Colorado was 5,540,545 on July 1,2016, the state was named for the Colorado River, which Spanish travelers named the Río Colorado for the ruddy silt the river carried from the mountains. The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28,1861, Colorado is nicknamed the Centennial State because it became a state in the same year as the centennial of the United States Declaration of Independence. Colorado is noted for its landscape of mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, plateaus, rivers. Denver is the capital and the most populous city of Colorado, residents of the state are properly known as Coloradans, although the term Coloradoan has been used archaically and lives on in the title of Fort Collins newspaper, the Coloradoan. Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are the states which have boundaries defined solely by lines of latitude and longitude. The summit of Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet elevation in Lake County is the highest point in Colorado, Colorado is the only U. S. state that lies entirely above 1,000 meters elevation. The point where the Arikaree River flows out of Yuma County, Colorado and this point, which holds the distinction of being the highest low elevation point of any state, is higher than the high elevation points of 18 states and the District of Columbia. A little less than one half of the area of Colorado is flat, East of the Rocky Mountains are the Colorado Eastern Plains of the High Plains, the section of the Great Plains within Nebraska at elevations ranging from roughly 3,350 to 7,500 feet. The Colorado plains were mostly prairies, but they have many patches of forests, buttes. Eastern Colorado is presently covered in farmland and rangeland, along with small farming villages. Precipitation is fair, averaging from 15 to 25 inches annually, corn, wheat, hay, soybeans, and oats are all typical crops, and most of the villages and towns in this region boast both a water tower and a grain elevator. Irrigation water is available from the South Platte, the Arkansas River, and a few other streams, however, heavy use of ground water from wells for irrigation has caused underground water reserves to decline. As well as agriculture, eastern Colorado hosts considerable livestock, such as cattle ranches. Roughly 70% of Colorados population resides along the edge of the Rocky Mountains in the Front Range Urban Corridor between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Pueblo, Colorado. This region is protected from prevailing storms that blow in from the Pacific Ocean region by the high Rockies in the middle of Colorado. The Front Range includes Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Greeley and other townships, on the other side of the Rockies, the significant population centers in Western Colorado are the cities of Grand Junction, Durango, and Montrose
2.
Yukon
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Yukon is the smallest and westernmost of Canadas three federal territories. The territory has the smallest population of any province or territory in Canada, Whitehorse is the territorial capital and Yukons only city. The territory was split from the Northwest Territories in 1898 and was named the Yukon Territory, though officially bilingual, the Yukon Government also recognizes First Nations languages. At 5,959 m, Yukons Mount Logan, in Kluane National Park and Reserve, is the highest mountain in Canada, most of Yukon has a subarctic climate, characterized by long cold winters and brief warm summers. The Arctic Ocean coast has a tundra climate, notable rivers include the Yukon River, after which the territory was named, as well as the Pelly, Stewart, Peel, White and Tatshenshini rivers. Long before the arrival of Europeans, central and southern Yukon was populated by First Nations people, sites of archeological significance in Yukon hold some of the earliest evidence of the presence of human occupation in North America. The sites safeguard the history of the first people and the earliest First Nations of the Yukon, the volcanic eruption of Mount Churchill in approximately 800 AD in what is now the U. S. Coastal and inland First Nations had extensive trading networks, European incursions into the area only began early in the 19th century with the fur trade, followed by missionaries. By the 1870s and 1880s gold miners began to arrive and this drove a population increase that justified the establishment of a police force, just in time for the start of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897. The increased population coming with the gold led to the separation of the Yukon district from the Northwest Territories. Its northern coast is on the Beaufort Sea and its ragged eastern boundary mostly follows the divide between the Yukon Basin and the Mackenzie River drainage basin to the east in the Mackenzie mountains. Most of the territory is in the watershed of its namesake, the southern Yukon is dotted with a large number of large, long and narrow glacier-fed alpine lakes, most of which flow into the Yukon River system. The larger lakes include Teslin Lake, Atlin Lake, Tagish Lake, Marsh Lake, Lake Laberge, Kusawa Lake, bennett Lake on the Klondike Gold Rush trail is a lake flowing into Nares Lake, with the greater part of its area within Yukon. Canadas highest point, Mount Logan, is in the territorys southwest, Mount Logan and a large part of the Yukons southwest are in Kluane National Park and Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Other national parks include Ivvavik National Park and Vuntut National Park in the north, other watersheds include the Mackenzie River, the Peel Watershed and the Alsek–Tatshenshini, and a number of rivers flowing directly into the Beaufort Sea. The two main Yukon rivers flowing into the Mackenzie in the Northwest Territories are the Liard River in the southeast, notable widespread tree species within Yukon are the black spruce and white spruce. Many trees are stunted because of the growing season and severe climate. The capital, Whitehorse, is also the largest city, with about three-quarters of the population, the second largest is Dawson City, which was the capital until 1952
3.
Mineral
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A mineral is a naturally occurring chemical compound, usually of crystalline form and abiogenic in origin. A mineral has one specific chemical composition, whereas a rock can be an aggregate of different minerals or mineraloids, the study of minerals is called mineralogy. There are over 5,300 known mineral species, over 5,070 of these have been approved by the International Mineralogical Association, the silicate minerals compose over 90% of the Earths crust. The diversity and abundance of species is controlled by the Earths chemistry. Silicon and oxygen constitute approximately 75% of the Earths crust, which translates directly into the predominance of silicate minerals, minerals are distinguished by various chemical and physical properties. Differences in chemical composition and crystal structure distinguish the various species, changes in the temperature, pressure, or bulk composition of a rock mass cause changes in its minerals. Minerals can be described by their various properties, which are related to their chemical structure. Common distinguishing characteristics include crystal structure and habit, hardness, lustre, diaphaneity, colour, streak, tenacity, cleavage, fracture, parting, more specific tests for describing minerals include magnetism, taste or smell, radioactivity and reaction to acid. Minerals are classified by key chemical constituents, the two dominant systems are the Dana classification and the Strunz classification, the silicate class of minerals is subdivided into six subclasses by the degree of polymerization in the chemical structure. All silicate minerals have a unit of a 4− silica tetrahedron—that is, a silicon cation coordinated by four oxygen anions. These tetrahedra can be polymerized to give the subclasses, orthosilicates, disilicates, cyclosilicates, inosilicates, phyllosilicates, other important mineral groups include the native elements, sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, sulfates, and phosphates. The first criterion means that a mineral has to form by a natural process, stability at room temperature, in the simplest sense, is synonymous to the mineral being solid. More specifically, a compound has to be stable or metastable at 25 °C, modern advances have included extensive study of liquid crystals, which also extensively involve mineralogy. Minerals are chemical compounds, and as such they can be described by fixed or a variable formula, many mineral groups and species are composed of a solid solution, pure substances are not usually found because of contamination or chemical substitution. Finally, the requirement of an ordered atomic arrangement is usually synonymous with crystallinity, however, crystals are also periodic, an ordered atomic arrangement gives rise to a variety of macroscopic physical properties, such as crystal form, hardness, and cleavage. There have been recent proposals to amend the definition to consider biogenic or amorphous substances as minerals. The formal definition of an approved by the IMA in 1995, A mineral is an element or chemical compound that is normally crystalline. However, if geological processes were involved in the genesis of the compound, Mineral classification schemes and their definitions are evolving to match recent advances in mineral science
4.
Fossil
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Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, such a preserved specimen is called a fossil if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years. The observation that fossils were associated with certain rock strata led early geologists to recognize a geological timescale in the 19th century. The development of dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or absolute age of the various strata. Like extant organisms, fossils vary in size from microscopic, even single bacterial cells one micrometer in diameter, to gigantic, such as dinosaurs, Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces. These types of fossil are called trace fossils, as opposed to body fossils, finally, past life leaves some markers that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of biochemical signals, these are known as chemofossils or biosignatures. The process of fossilization varies according to type and external conditions. Permineralization is a process of fossilization that occurs when an organism is buried, the empty spaces within an organism become filled with mineral-rich groundwater. Minerals precipitate from the groundwater, occupying the empty spaces and this process can occur in very small spaces, such as within the cell wall of a plant cell. Small scale permineralization can produce very detailed fossils, for permineralization to occur, the organism must become covered by sediment soon after death or soon after the initial decay process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil, some fossils consist only of skeletal remains or teeth, other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues. This is a form of diagenesis, in some cases the original remains of the organism completely dissolve or are otherwise destroyed. The remaining organism-shaped hole in the rock is called an external mold, if this hole is later filled with other minerals, it is a cast. An endocast or internal mold is formed when sediments or minerals fill the cavity of an organism. This is a form of cast and mold formation. If the chemistry is right, the organism can act as a nucleus for the precipitation of minerals such as siderite, if this happens rapidly before significant decay to the organic tissue, very fine three-dimensional morphological detail can be preserved. Nodules from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois, USA, are among the best documented examples of such mineralization, replacement occurs when the shell, bone or other tissue is replaced with another mineral
5.
Fossicking
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Fossicking is a term found in Cornwall, Australia and New Zealand referring to prospecting, especially in more recent times, when carried out as a recreational activity. This can be for gold, precious stones, fossils, etc. by sifting through a prospective area, in Australian English and New Zealand English, the term has an extended use meaning to rummage. The term has been argued to come from Cornish, in Australia, fossicking is and was protected by a number of laws which vary from state to state. In some states such as Queensland, fossickers must obtain a licence but in others, generally, this activity is regulated by the relevant State Government Department with certain rules to be followed. These typically include requiring the permission for access, use of hand tools only. Fossicking can be done in remote locations with no facilities, or can be a part of a guided tour, several small businesses in Australia have set up for the purpose of introducing new people to the activity or providing facilities for fossickers near the areas being searched. Frequently fossickers will try day trips, where this is due to the remote location. In Cornwall, such prospecting was monitored by the Stannary, the equivalent term used in searching for opal is noodling. Noodling, The practice of sifting through rejected mullock heaps for small pieces of precious opal inadvertently discarded by the miners, a number of people on the opal fields rely entirely on noodling for a living. They either sift through the material by hand. Tourists and others casually searching the dumps for pieces of opal are also noodling
6.
Mining engineering
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Mining engineering is an engineering discipline that applies science and technology to the extraction of minerals from the earth. Mining engineering is associated with other disciplines, such as geology, mineral processing and metallurgy. With the process of Mineral extraction, some amount of waste, Mining activities by their nature cause a disturbance of the natural environment in and around which the minerals are located. From prehistoric times to the present, mining has played a significant role in the existence of the human race, since the beginning of civilization people have used stone and ceramics and, later, metals found on or close to the Earths surface. These were used to manufacture tools and weapons. For example, high quality flint found in northern France and southern England were used to set fire, flint mines have been found in chalk areas where seams of the stone were followed underground by shafts and galleries. The oldest known mine on archaeological record is the Lion Cave in Swaziland, at this site, which radiocarbon dating indicates to be about 43,000 years old, paleolithic humans mined mineral hematite, which contained iron and was ground to produce the red pigment ochre. The ancient Romans were innovators of mining engineering and they developed large scale mining methods, such as the use of large volumes of water brought to the minehead by numerous aqueducts for hydraulic mining. The exposed rock was then attacked by fire-setting where fires were used to heat the rock, the thermal shock cracked the rock, enabling it to be removed. In some mines the Romans utilized water-powered machinery such as reverse overshot water-wheels and these were used extensively in the copper mines at Rio Tinto in Spain, where one sequence comprised 16 such wheels arranged in pairs, lifting water about 80 feet. Black powder was first used in mining in Banská Štiavnica, Kingdom of Hungary in 1627 and this allowed blasting of rock and earth to loosen and reveal ore veins, which was much faster than fire-setting. The Industrial Revolution saw further advances in mining technologies, including improved explosives and steam-powered pumps, lifts, Mining Engineers in India are earning relatively high salaries in comparison to many other professions. The average salary for a Mining Engineer in India is $15,250, however, the salaries are always highly determined by the level of skill, where the organisation is based and which organisation you are working for. In the United States, there are an estimated 6,630 employed mining engineers, the mean yearly salary for a mining engineer in the U. S. is $90,070. The foremost stage of mining starts with the process of finding, in the initial process of mineral exploration, however, the role of geologists and surveyors is prominent in the pre-feasibility study of the future mining operation. Mineral exploration and estimation of reserve through various prospecting methods are done to determine the method, Mining engineers are involved in the mineral discovery stage by working with geologists to identify a mineral reserve. The first step in discovering an ore body is to determine what minerals to test for, geologists and engineers drill core samples and conduct surface surveys searching for specific compounds and ores. For example, an engineer and geologist may target metallic ores such as galena for lead or chalcopyrite for copper
7.
Ore
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An ore is a type of rock that contains sufficient minerals with important elements including metals that can be economically extracted from the rock. The ores are extracted from the earth through mining, they are refined to extract the valuable element. The grade or concentration of an ore mineral, or metal, as well as its form of occurrence, will directly affect the costs associated with mining the ore. The cost of extraction must thus be weighed against the value contained in the rock to determine what ore can be processed. Metal ores are generally oxides, sulfides, silicates, or native metals that are not commonly concentrated in the Earths crust, the ores must be processed to extract the metals of interest from the waste rock and from the ore minerals. Ore bodies are formed by a variety of geological processes, the process of ore formation is called ore genesis. An ore deposit is an accumulation of ore and this is distinct from a mineral resource as defined by the mineral resource classification criteria. An ore deposit is one occurrence of a particular ore type, Ore deposits are classified according to various criteria developed via the study of economic geology, or ore genesis. Stratiform arkose-hosted and shale-hosted copper, typified by the Zambian copperbelt and this identifies, early on, whether further investment in estimation and engineering studies is warranted and identifies key risks and areas for further work. This is because the distribution of ores is unequal and dislocated from locations of peak demand. Other, lesser, commodities do not have international clearing houses and benchmark prices and this generally makes determining the price of ores of this nature opaque and difficult. Such metals include lithium, niobium-tantalum, bismuth, antimony and rare earths, most of these commodities are also dominated by one or two major suppliers with >60% of the worlds reserves. The London Metal Exchange aims to add uranium to its list of metals on warrant, the World Bank reports that China was the top importer of ores and metals in 2005 followed by the USA and Japan. Economic geology Mineral resource classification Ore genesis Petrology Froth Flotation Extractive metallurgy DILL, the “chessboard” classification scheme of mineral deposits, Mineralogy and geology from aluminum to zirconium, Earth-Science Reviews, Volume 100, Issue 1-4, June 2010, Pages 1-420
8.
Gangue
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In mining, gangue is the commercially worthless material that surrounds, or is closely mixed with, a wanted mineral in an ore deposit. It is thus distinct from overburden, which is the rock or materials overlying an ore or mineral body that are displaced during mining without being processed. The separation of mineral from gangue is known as mineral processing, mineral dressing and it is a necessary and often significant, aspect of mining. It can be a process, depending on the nature of the minerals involved. The ease with which the ore can be separated also plays an important part, minerals that were once thought of as gangue, and were dumped, may later find a commercial use. When this happens the old dumps are often reworked to extract the wanted mineral, for example, in copper mines in the 19th century the mineral arsenopyrite was dumped until arsenic became popular as an insecticide later in the century. In the 21st century, the use of gangue has been considered from a point of view. For example, in 2002, about 130 million tons of gangue were produced per year from mining in China. This, mixed with the 60 million tons of coal mud also produced, could be used for generation. The estimated cost of projects would be up to 4 billion yuan. Froth flotation Magnetic separation Vanning Extractive Metallurgy Mineral processing An Elementary Outline Of Mechanical Processes, by G. W. Danforth
