Ch. 16 Mining & Mineral Resources More dirt is moved every year in mining than is moved by all the rivers in the world. Mining seeks to find minerals, which are pure substances (either a pure element or a pure compound) that has beneficial uses. Industry then uses the minerals to produce almost everything that we use today. The two most common forms of mining are: Open-pit mining; Strip Mining

The Effects of Mining If you connected all the strip mines and open-pit mines in the U.S. together, you’d make a hole a mile wide, a mile deep and it would stretch across the U.S. Mines are some of the biggest point sources for pollution in the country because the mineral bearing rocks often have very harmful substances in them, such as sulfur. Most rocks only contain small amounts of useful minerals, so for every ton of the mineral produced, the mine can produce hundreds or thousands of tons of waste and pollution!

Responsible Mining In the U.S., laws have been passed requiring mining companies to reclaim the land. To reclaim land, miners remove the topsoil from the land they want to mine and set it aside. When the miners are done, they fill the strip or pit in and replace the topsoil, plant new trees, and restore the land as best they can to its pre-mining condition. However, the 2 best way to reduce the harmful effects from mining is to use fewer resources and to recycle as much as possible so that we do not need to mine as much in the future!