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Mining extracts useful materials from the earth. Although mining provides many valuable minerals, it can also harm people and the environment.

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Explosives that explode when they are hit are also called mine; Two common types are Land mines and Naval mines.

Mining is the process of mining stuff out of the ground. Any material that cannot be grown must be mined. Mining things from the ground is called extraction. Mining can include extraction of metals and minerals, like coal, diamond, gold, silver, platinum, copper, tin and iron. Mining can also include other things like oil and natural gas.

Some mining is done by scraping away the soil (dirt) from the top of the ground. This is called surface mining. Some mining is done by going deep underground into a mine shaft. This is called underground mining. Some mining, such as gold mining, is done in other ways. Gold can be mined by searching in the bed of a river or other stream of water to remove the flakes of gold. This is called panning or placer mining.

A worker in a mine is called a miner. Underground mining is a dangerous job. Many mines have accidents. Hundreds of miners die every year from accidents, mostly in poor countries. Safety rules and special safety equipment is used to try and protect miners from accidents. Underground coal mining is especially dangerous because coal can give off poisonous and explosive gases.

Some towns are mining towns. People live there because they can make money as miners or by doing things for miners.

Mining techniques

Mining techniques can be divided into two common excavation types: surface mining and sub-surface (underground) mining. Today, surface mining is much more common, and produces, for example, 85% of minerals (excluding petroleum and natural gas) in the United States, including 98% of metallic ores.

Targets are divided into two general categories of materials: placer deposits, consisting of valuable minerals contained within river gravels, beach sands, and other unconsolidated materials; and lode deposits, where valuable minerals are found in veins, in layers, or in mineral grains generally distributed throughout a mass of actual rock. Both types of ore deposit, placer or lode, are mined by both surface and underground methods.

Some mining, including much of the rare earth elements and uranium mining, is done by less-common methods, such as in-situ leaching: this technique involves digging neither at the surface nor underground. The extraction of target minerals by this technique requires that they be soluble, e.g., potash, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, sodium sulfate, which dissolve in water. Some minerals, such as copper minerals and uranium oxide, require acid or carbonate solutions to dissolve.

Surface mining

Surface mining is done by removing (stripping) surface vegetation, dirt, and, if necessary, layers of bedrock in order to reach buried ore deposits. Techniques of surface mining include: open-pit mining, which is the recovery of materials from an open pit in the ground, quarrying, identical to open-pit mining except that it refers to sand, stone and clay; strip mining, which consists of stripping surface layers off to reveal ore/seams underneath; and mountaintop removal, commonly associated with coal mining, which involves taking the top of a mountain off to reach ore deposits at depth. Most (but not all) placer deposits, because of their shallowly buried nature, are mined by surface methods. Finally, landfill mining involves sites where landfills are excavated and processed. Landfill mining has been thought of as a solution to dealing with long-term methane emissions and local pollution

Underground mining

Sub-surface mining consists of digging tunnels or shafts into the earth to reach buried ore deposits. Ore, for processing, and waste rock, for disposal, are brought to the surface through the tunnels and shafts. Sub-surface mining can be classified by the type of access shafts used, the extraction method or the technique used to reach the mineral deposit. Drift mining utilizes horizontal access tunnels, slope mining uses diagonally sloping access shafts, and shaft mining utilizes vertical access shafts. Mining in hard and soft rock formations require different techniques.

Other methods include shrinkage stope mining, which is mining upward, creating a sloping underground room, long wall mining, which is grinding a long ore surface underground, and room and pillar mining, which is removing ore from rooms while leaving pillars in place to support the roof of the room. Room and pillar mining often leads to retreat mining, in which supporting pillars are removed as miners retreat, allowing the room to cave in, thereby loosening more ore. Additional sub-surface mining methods include hard rock mining, which is mining of hard rock (igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary) materials, bore hole mining, drift and fill mining, long hole slope mining, sub level caving, and block caving.

Highwall mining

Highwall mining is another form of surface mining that evolved from auger mining. In Highwall mining, the coal seam is penetrated by a continuous miner propelled by a hydraulic Pushbeam Transfer Mechanism (PTM). A typical cycle includes sumping (launch-pushing forward) and shearing (raising and lowering the cutterhead boom to cut the entire height of the coal seam). As the coal recovery cycle continues, the cutterhead is progressively launched into the coal seam for 19.72 feet (6.01 m). Then, the Pushbeam Transfer Mechanism (PTM) automatically inserts a 19.72-foot (6.01 m) long rectangular Pushbeam (Screw-Conveyor Segment) into the center section of the machine between the Powerhead and the cutterhead. The Pushbeam system can penetrate nearly 1,000 feet (300 m) into the coal seam. One patented Highwall mining system uses augers enclosed inside the Pushbeam that prevent the mined coal from being contaminated by rock debris during the conveyance process. Using a video imaging and/or a gamma ray sensor and/or other Geo-Radar systems like a coal-rock interface detection sensor (CID), the operator can see ahead projection of the seam-rock interface and guide the continuous miner's progress. Highwall mining can produce thousands of tons of coal in contour-strip operations with narrow benches, previously mined areas, trench mine applications and steep-dip seams with controlled water-inflow pump system and/or a gas (inert) venting system.

Heavy machinery is used in mining to explore and develop sites, to remove and stockpile overburden, to break and remove rocks of various hardness and toughness, to process the ore, and to carry out reclamation projects after the mine is closed. Bulldozers, drills, explosives and trucks are all necessary for excavating the land. In the case of placer mining, unconsolidated gravel, or alluvium, is fed into machinery consisting of a hopper and a shaking screen or trommel which frees the desired minerals from the waste gravel. The minerals are then concentrated using sluices or jigs.

Large drills are used to sink shafts, excavate stopes, and obtain samples for analysis. Trams are used to transport miners, minerals and waste. Lifts carry miners into and out of mines, and move rock and ore out, and machinery in and out, of underground mines. Huge trucks, shovels and cranes are employed in surface mining to move large quantities of overburden and ore. Processing plants utilize large crushers, mills, reactors, roasters and other equipment to consolidate the mineral-rich material and extract the desired compounds and metals from the ore.

Images for kids

In Spanish: Minería para niños

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It's time to look at our supply of raw materials

Our globalised marketplace keeps prices relatively low, but at a cost: a vulnerable supply chain and, in some cases, reliance on countries with histories of exploitative workplace practices and child labour.

'What we really don't want to happen is that the metals and materials we use come from only one place or only one company in the world,' Richard explains. 'Narrow supply opens up the possibility of commercial and geographical monopolies being created.

'In the past we have had problems with monopolies inflating prices and there is the risk as well, given where they might be coming from, that these mining organisations aren't following best practice.'

According to Richard, the UK's supply of lithium is currently stable but the cobalt supply is more uncertain.

'At the moment, 30% of our lithium comes from South America including Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, and another third comes from Australia, with the rest made up by a few other suppliers.

'Lithium is distributed among various countries, so the supply of that is quite diverse and secure. However, around 70% of cobalt comes from a single source: The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country that has had its share of political problems and evidence of some child labour, which as consumers we should be concerned about.'

Should we bring more primary production home?

Richard believes there is huge potential in looking closer to home for our mineral supply.

He says, 'When you can source minerals locally, you know the supply chain is short and can be better controlled. The risk of unethical practices drop and you can cut down on the environmental and other costs of transportation.

'Unfortunately, we have a tendency to be "NIMBYs" when it comes to mining, saying things are okay if it's "not in my back yard" - but isn't exporting the problem worse?

'I think we can take the example from agriculture. People are happy eating food that is produced locally and I think we should be equally conscious about how we source raw materials from Earth.'

Towards a circular economy

Richard believes we should be building a circular economy that minimises or eliminates waste by returning precious resources into the production cycle.

'Rather than creating things like mobile phones, using them for a while and putting them in a drawer when we buy a new one, we have an obligation not to lose track of where those precious materials are, and to ensure we are making products in forms that can be readily recycled,' Richard says.

'We should not be wasting resources. We should make sure that once we pull them out of the ground we look after them and use and reuse them.'

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Your mobile phone is powered by precious metals and minerals

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A growing demand for electronic devices is putting pressure on supply chains and the planet.

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Mining is a process of extracting natural resources from the Earth's crust. Modern mining consists of utilizing machinery to dig for resources which are identified by geologists and geophysicists. Engineers, contractors, governments, and companies then determine the best strategies for extracting these resources. Mining operations often consist of extraction, storage, and transportation of the raw resources. These resources are then shipped to other industries for processing or use.

There are two principle forms of mining: surface mining and underground mining.

Surface mining- consists of extracting resources which are only a few hundred metres below the surface of the earth. This involves clearing the surface in the region to be developed. Trees, brush, and topsoil must be removed to allow for land development. The layers of earth between valuable production seams, called "overburden", must then be moved to allow for mining. Following mining, the overburden is replaced and land reclamation is performed.

Underground mining- involves accessing deposits up to 3 km below the surface. In these operations, a series of tunnels and holes are drilled to access deep reserves.

Mining in the Energy Industry
The most common and widespread use of mining in the energy industry is coal mining, where hard coal and brown coal/lignite is extracted from relatively shallow depths via surface or underground mining. Surface mining of coal seams is often lucrative, as up to 90% of the coal deposits can be recovered. The two types of underground coal mining are known as "Room and Pillar" mining and "Longwall" mining, which may recover up to 40% and 75% of the coal seams, respectively.

Additionally, surface mining has a growing role to play in unconventional oil in the form of oil sands. Currently, 895 km ² of bitumen mining takes place in the Athabasca oil sands deposits in Alberta, Canada. Finally, other minerals such as uranium, cadmium, lithium, and thorium are all recovered via mining operations.

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Mining is a process of extracting natural resources from the Earth's crust. Modern mining consists of utilizing machinery to dig for resources which are identified by geologists and geophysicists. Engineers, contractors, governments, and companies then determine the best strategies for extracting these resources. Mining operations often consist of extraction, storage, and transportation of the raw resources.