Mineral Resources Almost all Earth materials are used by humans for something. We require metals for making machines, sands and gravels for making roads and buildings, sand for making computer chips, limestone and gypsum for making concrete, clays for making ceramics, gold, silver, copper and aluminum for making electric circuits, and diamonds and corundum (sapphire, ruby, emerald) for abrasives and jewelry. In this discussion, we hope to answer the following questions: What constitutes a mineral resource and an ore? What determines whether or not a mineral sources is economical to exploit? By what processes do ores form? How are mineral resources found and exploited? What happens when a mineral resource become scarce as a result of human consumption? What are the adverse effects of exploiting mineral resource. Mineral resources can be divided into two major categories - Metallic and Nonmetallic. Metallic resources are things like Gold, Silver, Tin, Copper, Lead, Zinc, Iron, Nickel, Chromium, and Aluminum. Nonmetallic resources are things like sand, gravel, gypsum, halite, Uranium, dimension stone. A mineral resource is a volume of rock enriched in one or more useful materials. In this sense a mineral refers to a useful material, a definition that is different from the way we defined a mineral back in Chapter 5. Here the word mineral can be any substance that comes from the Earth.
Traveling to New Zealand would be an amazing experience. I would enjoy snowboarding, visiting hot springs, and seeing volcanoes. I will have fun doing other extreme sports. I am excited to see the rocky coasts, forests, and mountains. Traveling between the two islands might be tiring, but I will be able to see two different climate zones. I will miss out on summer activities, but I love winter activities and will enjoy myself.
Iceland is known as the Land of Fire. The country is present in the plate boundary of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. Being on the top of the Ring of Fire, it has active volcanoes. Hexagonal basalt columns formed from a volcanic eruption. Basalt columns are the result of a cooling process that changes the appearance of the lava. Basalt is a volcanic rock rich in iron and magnesium created from the heated magma that emerges as lava during an eruption.
The photograph given below is from Icelandic national park Jokulsargljufur.