Types of Rock
A naturally occurring chemical element or inorganic compound that exists as a solid with a regularly repeating internal arrangement of its atoms or
ions
What is a mineral?
The process in which vegetation, soil, and rock
overlying a mineral deposit are cleared away.
What is surface mining?
Tectonics plates that are moving away from each other.
What is a divergent boundary?
Identified deposits from which we can extract the mineral profitably at current prices.
What are reserves?
The outermost and thinnest layer of material.
What is the Earth's crust?
A solid combination of one or more minerals found in the earth’s crust.
What is a rock?
The process in which underground mineral resources
are removed through tunnels and shafts. This method is used to remove metal ores and coal that are too deep to be extracted by surface mining.
What is subsurface mining?
Tectonic plates colliding together, causing one plate to slide under the other.
What are convergent boundaries?
An ore that contains a large concentration of the desired mineral.
What is high-grade ore?
The extremely hot solid part of the core.
What is the inner core?
A type of rock formed through sediments and organic matter being compacted together over time.
What is sedimentary rock?
A surface mining technique that machines are used to dig very large holes and remove metal ores.
What is open pit mining?
Tectonic plates sliding by each other, can cause earthquakes when they get caught on each other.
What is a transform boundary?
An ore that contains a low concentration of the desired mineral.
What is low-grade ore?
The rigid outermost part of the mantle.
What is the lithosphere?
A type of rock that forms below or on the earth’s surface under intense heat and pressure when magma wells up from the earth’s mantle and then cools and hardens.
What is igneous rock?
Any form of mining involving the extraction of mineral deposits that lie in large horizontal beds close to the earth’s surface.
What is strip mining?
The boundary that most likely causes volcanoes by allowing magma to come up from the Earth's interior.
What are divergent boundaries?
The time it takes to use up a certain proportion—usually 80%—of the reserves of a mineral at a given rate of use.
What is depletion time?
The part of the core made up of molten rock and semi-solid material.
What is the outer core?
This rock forms when an existing rock is subjected to high temperatures and high pressure.
What is metamorphic rock?
The process in which the top of a mountain is removed to expose seams of coal, which are then extracted.
What is mountaintop removal?
The boundary that most likely causes tsunamis by producing underwater earthquakes.
What are transform boundaries?
Substances that are hard to find in
concentrations high enough to extract and process at an affordable price.
What are rare-earth elements?
What is the athensophere?