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=4.3 Mineral Resources=

Vocabulary

 * gemstone:** a hard colorful mineral that has a brilliant or glassy luster
 * ore:** a rock that contains a metal or economically useful mineral
 * smelting:** an ore is melted to separate the important minerals from the other elements that the ore contains
 * alloy:** a solid mixture of two or more metals

The Uses of Minerals
Smelting Ores Process
 * many things around you are made out of minerals
 * windows are made out of minerals
 * chairs
 * white boards
 * Gemstones
 * gemstones are used for decorations, jewelry, and mechanical parts
 * Metals
 * metals contain minerals
 * such as...
 * aluminum
 * iron
 * copper
 * silver
 * metals can be...
 * stretched into wire
 * flattened into sheets
 * hammered without breaking
 * molded without breaking
 * Other Useful Minerals
 * talc is used to make talcum powder
 * fluorite is used in making aluminum and steel
 * quartz is used in making glass
 * kaolin is used in china and pottery
 * gypsum is used in wallboard, cement, and stucco
 * corundum is used to polish and clean products
 * Ores
 * an ore is a rock that has a metal or useful mineral
 * a metal usually has a metal combined with a number of other elements
 * Prospecting
 * a prospector is someone who looks for an ore deposit
 * they prospect by observing what kind of rock there are at places
 * they examine the plants that grow there
 * they also test stream water for certain chemicals
 * Mining
 * strip mines
 * earthmoving equipment scrapes away the soil to show the ore
 * open pit mines
 * huge earthmoving equipment dig a gigantic pit
 * can get as wide and deep as one kilometer
 * open pit mines are for ore deposits that start near surface, but goes way down
 * shaft mines
 * a network of tunnels to get all of the veins of ore
 * mining can be very harmful to the environment
 * strip mining and pit mining can never get rid of entirely
 * waste materials pollute rivers and lakes
 * U.S. has laws to try and do as less damage as you can
 * Smelting
 * you must remove the metal from the ore
 * the process of doing this is called smelting
 * they crush the iron core and mix it with limestone and coke
 * they put the mixture in a blast-furnace so the coke burns
 * when the coke burns, it changes the chemical so the mixture makes carbon dioxide gas and molten iron
 * the iron sinks to bottom and gets filtered out
 * the slag gets poured of through another filter
 * after you are done with smelting you need to do another process to get rid of the impurities from iron
 * this creates steel
 * steel is an alloy

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