Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef or placer deposit. These deposits form a mineralized package that is of economic interest to the miner.
An ore is a natural occurrence of rock or sediment that contains sufficient minerals with economically important elements, typically metals, that can be economically extracted from the deposit. The ores are extracted at a profit from the earth through mining; they are then refined to extract the valuable element or elements.
The Rammelsberg is a mountain, 635 metres (2,083 ft) high, on the northern edge of the Harz range, south of the historic town of Goslar in the North German state of Lower Saxony. The mountain is the location of an important silver, copper, and lead mine, the only mine which had been working continuously for over 1,000 years when it finally closed in 1988. Since 1992, the visitor mine of Rammelsberg has become a UNESCO World heritage site.
The Copper Country is an area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the United States, including all of Keweenaw County, Michigan and most of Houghton, Baraga and Ontonagon counties as well as part of Marquette County. The area is so named as copper mining was prevalent there from 1845 until the late 1960s, with one mine continuing through 1995. In its heyday, the area was the world's greatest producer of copper.
Falconbridge Limited was a Toronto, Ontario-based natural resources company with operations in 18 countries, involved in the exploration, mining, processing, and marketing of metal and mineral products, including nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum. It was listed on the TSX and NYSE (FAL), and had revenue of US$6.9 billion in 2005. In August 2006, it was absorbed by Swiss-based mining company Xstrata, which had formerly been a major shareholder.
Kidd Mine is an underground base metal mine in the city of Timmins, Ontario, Canada. It is owned by Glencore Inc., and operated by Kidd Operations, a Glencore subsidiary. The mine was formerly owned by Xstrata Copper, Falconbridge Ltd., and Texas Gulf Sulphur. Ore from the Kidd Mine is processed into concentrate at the Kidd Metallurgical Site, located 27 km (17 mi) southeast of the mine, which until 2010 also smelted the ore and refined the metal produced. Following the closure of the majority of the Met Site, concentrate is now shipped to Quebec for processing. Kidd Mine is the world's deepest copper/zinc mine.
Silver mining is the resource extraction of silver by mining.
Heath Steele Mines, situated 60 km northwest of Newcastle, New Brunswick, Canada, at the headwaters of the Tomogonops and Little Rivers, was a large and productive copper, lead and zinc mine which operated from 1956 to 1999. The mine was an economic cornerstone of Miramichi communities throughout this period.
Copper mining in the United States has been a major industry since the rise of the northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. In 2017 the United States produced 1.27 million metric tonnes of copper, worth $8 billion, making it the world's fourth largest copper producer, after Chile, China, and Peru. Copper was produced from 23 mines in the US. Top copper producing states in 2014 were Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Montana. Minor production also came from Idaho, and Missouri. As of 2014, the US had 45 million tonnes of known remaining reserves of copper, the fifth largest known copper reserves in the world, after Chile, Australia, Peru, and Mexico.
Copper mining in Michigan became an important industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its rise marked the start of copper mining as a major industry in the United States.
Romania ranks tenth in the world in terms of the diversity of minerals produced in the country. Around 60 different minerals are currently produced in Romania. The richest mineral deposits in the country are halite.
The mineral industry is one of the main sectors of the Armenian economy and in 2017 accounted for 30.1% of its exports.
The mineral industry of Russia is one of the world's leading [[minerammmdustries and accounts for a large percentage of the Commonwealth of Independent States' production of a range of mineral products, including metals, industrial minerals, and mineral fuels. In 2005, Russia ranked among the leading world producers or was a significant producer of a vast range of mineral commodities, including aluminum, arsenic, cement, copper, magnesium compounds and metals, nitrogen, palladium, silicon, nickel and vanadium.
The Brunswick #12 mine is an underground lead-zinc-copper mine in the Bathurst Mining Camp of northern New Brunswick, Canada. It was discovered in January, 1953 and entered production in April, 1964. The Brunswick #12 orebody is the largest deposit in the Bathurst area and was one of the largest underground zinc mines in the world well into the late 1990s. The mine was officially closed at the end of April, 2013.
The Brunswick #6 mine is a copper-lead-zinc mine in the Bathurst Mining Camp of northern New Brunswick, Canada. It was discovered in October, 1952 and was in production from 1966 until 1983. The Brunswick #6 orebody was the first major sulfide deposit discovered in the Bathurst area. The mine operated as an open-pit operation until 1977 when a ramp was driven from the bottom of the pit to access deeper ore.
The Caribou Mine is a copper-lead-zinc mine in the Bathurst Mining Camp of northern New Brunswick, Canada. It was discovered in 1955 and has seen several stages of development and production. The mine has changed ownership four times in the past 20 years.
The Murray Brook Mine is a VMS deposit in the Bathurst Mining Camp (BMC) of northern New Brunswick, Canada owned by NovaGold Resources. The deposit was discovered in 1955 and contains the largest gossan zone in the BMC. From 1989 to 1992 the gossan zone was processed for gold and silver. In 1992 copper rich ore was crushed and tested for heap leaching.
Mining is an important industry in Pakistan. Pakistan has deposits of several minerals including coal, copper, gold, chromite, mineral salt, bauxite and several other minerals. There are also a variety of precious and semi-precious minerals that are also mined. These include peridot, aquamarine, topaz, ruby, emerald, rare-earth minerals bastnaesite and xenotime, sphene, tourmaline, and many varieties and types of quartz .
