Mining refers to extraction of natural resources like minerals and metals from the earth. The process involves removing or digging up the soil for recovering the material from a defined geographical area. Materials that can be obtained though mining include iron, coal, rock salt, uranium, limestone, and precious metals like gold, silver and platinum. Base metals, oil shale, and other natural resources that cannot be manufactured in a lab are also obtained through mining.
The process of mining begins by exploration and identification of an ore body, followed by the estimation of the value of the potential mine. The availability of financial and technical resources and the risks involved are analyzed to know if mining at the location is possible. This is followed by development of the mine, extraction and processing the resources to obtain the end product.
Mining techniques used for extraction include placer mining, surface mining and sub-surface mining. Surface mining can be open-pit mining, strip mining and landfill mining. Sub-surface mining involves in digging tunnels to reach the minerals or metals buried deep underground. Sub-surface mining can be drift mining, slope mining, and shaft mining.
Drilling is the process of cutting holes in solid materials like rocks, wood, metals using sharp cutting tools called drill bits. Drilling can be categorized into center drilling, spot drilling, gun drilling, deep-hole drilling, micro drilling and trepanning. While smaller sized drill bits and drilling machines are used for cutting and breaking smaller stones and other solid material, a large drill rig is often used to dig deep into the earth's crust for extracting natural resources like water, oil and natural gas. |
