Mineral Resources

• Exhaustible, Non-renewable resources

• Essential for industries
• Consumption increased due to rapid
industrialization
• Short supply - Copper, Mercury, Silver
• At verge of getting exhausted
Minerals Uses
Metals
Aluminium Aircrafts, Rockets, Utensils, Building
Copper Cooking vessels, Electric wires, Gold jewellery
Gold Jewellery, Dentistry
Iron Pipes, Steel industry, Battery, Heavy machinery
Platinum Jewellery, Catalyst
Uranium Nuclear bomb, Electricity
Liquid-metal
Mercury Thermometer, Dental, Switches
Non-metals
Phosphorus Fertilizers, Detergents, Medicine
Sulphur Insecticides, Medicines
Mining
• Process of taking out
minerals or ores from Earth
• Prospecting, Exploration,
Development, Exploitation,
Reclamation
• Engineers, Geophysicists,
Geologists and Geochemists
Surface Mining
• Open-Pit mining – by making pits (Copper,
Iron, Marble, Granite)
• Dredging – under water deposits
• Strip mining – Top soil removed and mined
• Contour strip mining – Mountainous terrains
• Mountain top mining – Blasting by using
explosives
Sub-surface Mining
• Deep beneath Earth’s surface
• Deep holes are dug out and ores extracted
• Risk of collapse, toxic gas explosion, underground water pollution
• Eg: Gold, Coal

Mining Sites in India

• Coal, Lignite – West Bengal, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra
Pradesh
• Uranium – Jharkand, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Meghalaya
• Aluminium – Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Jharkand
• Iron - Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Jharkand, Karnataka, Orissa
• Manganese – Second largest supplier in World
Mponeng Gold Mine
Disadvantages of Mining
1. Damages top soil
2. Affects vegetation
3. Cracks in buildings, houses, roads , gas leakage
4. Transportation problem
5. Wind erosion
6. Pollutes ground water and surface water
7. Soil pollution
8. Air pollution – Due to extraction and processing of ores
9. Miners – Suffer respiratory illness , black lung or
pneumoconiosis, skin diseases
Conservation of Minerals
1. Recycling – Used items collected, remelted and reprocessed
2. Reuse – Glass bottles. Both recycling and reuse saves land,
reduces solid waste
3. Substitution – Rarely available minerals replaced by
abundantly available minerals. Eg. Steel, tin, Copper have
been substituted by plastics, ceramics, glass
4. Decreased consumption – Durable and repairable products
should be used
5. Use of waste – Using waste material of one industry as raw
materials for another industry
Land Resources
1. One-fifth of Earth’s surface
2. Covered with forests, grasslands, wetlands,
agricultural lands, rural and urban settlements
3. Source of materials essential to man
4. Fertile soil layer – supports life, plants obtain
water / minerals, dead plants / animals decay as
nutrients
5. Pedology – study of soil
Soil formation
1. Weathering – breakdown of rocks into smaller particles
a) Physical weathering – caused by temperature, frost,
drying / wetting
b) Chemical weathering – caused by oxidation,
reduction, hydration, hydrolysis
c)Biological weathering - microbial activity, plant
roots, burrowing animals
2. Pedogenesis – maturation of soil through humus
Physical weathering

Chemical
weathering
Biological weathering

Burrowing Animals Burrowing Animals

Tree Roots
Microbes
Land Degradation

1. Soil erosion

2. Water logging

3. Salinity

4. Shifting agriculture

5. Desertification
Soil erosion
• Removal of top fertile soil – by water, wind, snow
• Happens extremely in hilly regions
• Over-grazing, Tilling, over-cropping – Increases soil
erosion
• Depletion of soil fertility – caused by clearing natural
vegetation, residential areas, industrialization
Soil conservation
Based on the following principles:
1. Protection of soil from impact of rain
2. To slow down the water movement along the slope
3. To make water get into soil
4. To increase soil particle size
5. Wind velocity reduction by growing vegetation
Methods to prevent loss of soil
1. Conservational tillage – incorporation of residues from
previous cropping into soil by ploughing
2. Organic farming – use of biofertlizers replacing
synthetic chemical fertilizers
3. Crop rotation – Growing different crops in successive
seasons on same land
4. Contour ploughing – used in low rainfall areas by
making furrows and ridges for storing water
5. Mulching – Soil covered with crop residue / plant litters,
retains moisture, decreases runoff
6. Strip cropping – planting of crops in rows
7. Terrace farming – Division of slope into many flat
fields, slow down run-off speed
8. Agrostological methods – done by growing grasses,
grass act as soil binders / stabilizers
9. Afforestation – planting of tree seedlings in barren
areas
10.Wind breaks – Growing vegetation in margins of
desert area to low down wind velocity
Contour ploughing
Strip cropping

Terrace farming Wind breaks

Control of Land Degradation
• By restoring forests and grass covers

• Crop rotation, mixed cropping

• By leaching the saline lands with water

• Planting wind breaks

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