what should i do for my 4-page essay metallic mineral deposits and mining or gemstone formation, mining and...

Question

extraction. And after you pick why should i do it and what are some good resources...

Answer 1

Much of the stuff we use everyday started as a mineral deposit. Only a few metals are ever found in the "native" state, examples gold, copper, and silver. Even these metals are mined from rock because it takes very special geologic conditions to create big lumps of these metals and there is not enough of the native metal deposits to provide what we need. Normally, metals exist in the earth as minerals: oxides, sulfides, carbonates, etc.

If you pick a metal, you can find information about what types of minerals the metal comes from, where there are deposits of these minerals that are mined, things like that. Wikipedia would be a good place to start. If you pick an unusual metal like tantalum or zirconium or indium or some of the others that most people have never heard of, you might find more info on the websites of companies who produce these metals. There are some metals that are found in only a few places on earth, ex. chromium, cobalt, iridium. Things like Al and Fe are very common.

The science of converting minerals to metals is called extractive metallurgy. Once you pick a metal, you could google extractive metallurgy of that metal.

Good luck