mineral resources

Mineral Resources

Contents of Entire Course

Reserves vs. Resources
Factors involved in deciding whether to mine a potential ore body
The Rise of Recycling
Environmental Problems associated with various aspects of Mining

adapted to HTML from lecture notes of Prof. Stephen A. Nelson Tulane University

Reserves vs. Resources

Reserves - Are dependent on price.
Resources - Total amount of material present.

(Notice that the production of gold roughly followed the price of the gold. In 1980 the price of gold drastically went up and very shortly after that we see a sharp increase in gold production. This sharp increase reflects the addition of other gold sources that were previously thought too costly to use.)
Typically a gold mine may contain 10 grams (one-third of an ounce) of gold per ton of ore mined.

Factors involved in deciding whether to mine a potential ore body

Price of commodity

Size of ore body

Cost of capital investment

Underground vs. Surface Mining ( underground mining is much more expensive generally will only do this if there is a seam or if the ore can be sold at a high price)

Extent of mineral processing necessary (eg- 8 g of gold is recovered from 1 ton of rock)

Cost of mining

Cost of transportation

Cost of reclamation (returning land to previous pre-mining condition)

Is there a market?

Mineral Reserves and Resources
Material	World Reserve 1,000 tons	World Lifetime Years	U.S. Reserves 1,000 tons	U.S.
Bauxite	23,000,000	219	20,000	4.1
Chrome	1,400,000	109	0	0
Iron	150,000,000	178	16,100,000	244
Nickel	47,000	51	23	0.2
Platinum	56,000 tons	190	250 tons	2.2
Gold	44,000 tons	20	4,770 tons	47

The Rise of Recycling

Notice how the consumption of metals has changed from a strictly primary source to a 50% primary source and 50% recycled source since about 1980.

Another overhead has to do with what % of scrap metal for a variety of different metals were used instead of mining new reserves. The below is a list of the findings.

Metal	% of scrap metal used
Al	40
Cu	42
Fe	55
Pb	70
Zn	30
Sn	30

Environmental Problems associated with various aspects of Mining

Exploration - Need to put in roads, cut lines through woods, etc.

Mining

Underground - Not as bad, except that sometimes hazardous materials are removed.

Surface - Pit or strip mine. Can cover very large tracrts of land.

Processing

Waste materials need to be disposed of, and are often toxic.

Smokestack - Ejects toxic material into the atmosphere.

Sulfides are common - Arsenic, lead, mercury, sulfuric acid.