Name:  maria escobedo

GLY-2038 –Environmental Geoscience Fall 2020

Assignment: Mineral Use

Mineral resources are, by their nature, non-renewable. The natural geologic system of ore creation
operates many orders of magnitude more slowly than the rate at which human society extracts and uses
the minerals. Many of the most important metal resources are being depleted rapidly.

In order to investigate mineral use and depletion, examine Slides 8-16 in the Module 10 Mineral
Resources supplementary materials file. Then answer the questions below. Some of the questions
will require an online search for reliable information on the minerals.

1) What are a few of the mineral resources that U.S. citizens consume the most of, in terms of volume
over an average lifetime?
 stone
 sand and gravel
 cement
2) Look up and record some of the uses of the resources you listed in the previous question.
 Buildings, walls, paving slabs, foundations, flooring, hollow and solid blocks,
 road construction, for mixing with asphalt, as construction fill, and in the
production of construction materials like concrete blocks, bricks, and pipes.
 binder in concrete, housing, roads, schools, hospitals, dams and ports,
3) At present rates of consumption, what are the half-dozen mineral resources with the shortest
remaining lifetimes?
 (rhodium, gallium germanium hafnium= n/a) indium, silver, antimony, tin, lead,
gold,
4) What are some of the uses of the resources you listed in the previous question?
 rhodium-alloys are used in furnace windings, bushings for glass fiber production,
thermocouple elements, electrodes for aircraft spark plugs, and laboratory
crucibles.
gallium- electronic circuits, semiconductors and light-emitting diodes
germanium- semiconductor industry.
hafnium- control rods
indium- make transistors, rectifiers, thermistors and photoconductors.
silver- make mirrors, dental alloys, solder and brazing alloys, electrical contacts and
batteries.
antimony- batteries, bullets and cable sheathing.
tin- used to coat other metals to prevent corrosion,
lead- car batteries, pigments, ammunition, cable sheathing, weights for lifting,
weight belts for diving, lead crystal glass, radiation protection and in some solders.
gold-fillings, crowns, bridges, and orthodontic appliances.
5) What are the half-dozen mineral resources that are recycled the most?
 lead, aluminum, gold, germanium. nickel, copper
6) What is the typical way in which these minerals are recycled?
 lead - scrap led is accumulated and sent to a smelter. At the smelter, collected
lead-based products are broken and scrap lead is safely separated from other
components. Then, lead components are systematically smelted and refined.
aluminum- cans are usually collected and sent to a recycling center, where they are
cleaned, sorted, and crushed. Then, they go to an aluminum manufacturing plant,
where they are shredded, remelted and solidified again.
gold-comes from jewelry, Once the purity is determined, the jewelry is melted at
more than 1,900 degrees Fahrenheit and then poured into bars based on the gold's
purity. Or it is further processed to eliminate impurities.
germanium- Broken/damaged germanium optics, Germanium optics coated with
ThF4, Spent germanium sputtering targets, Solid chunks of germanium, Solar panels
containing germanium, Fiber optic waste streams containing germanium,
nickel- in the form of stainless steel scrap and is recycled directly back into the
stainless steel manufacturing process along with other major sources of nickel
wastes.
copper- Recyclers are interested in high-purity copper scrap. Once received, it’s
processed through a chopping line, which granulates the insulated wire, allowing
copper to be liberated from any insulation.
The granulated material will cross a screener, then a density separator, capturing
recovered copper chops that will later undergo a quality inspection before being
transported to a rod mill for consumption.
Copper is then processed through a proprietary recycling area, which helps ensure
the metal is contaminant-free, and provides an optimal finished product for efficient
melting at the rod mill. Scrap is then loaded into a furnace, melted, casted and rolled
into 5/16 rod. The rod is then used to make building wire.

7) Which important U.S. mineral needs are already 100% dependent on imports?
 abestos, bauxite, alumina, fluorite, graphite, maganese and other rare earths.
8) What are some of the uses of the resources you listed in the previous question?
 abestos- "the magic mineral" because its unique chemical composition and
physical properties made it suitable for use in thousands of products from floor tiles
to road signs, from sewage pipes to insulating mattresses.
bauxite and alumina- Bauxite is used to produce alumina, which is then used to
produce aluminum.
fluorite The primary uses are in the metallurgical, ceramics, and chemical
industries; however, optical, lapidary, and other uses are also important.
graphite- used in pencils and lubricants. It is a good conductor of heat and electricity.
Its high conductivity makes it useful in electronic products such as electrodes,
batteries, and solar panels.
maganese- used to produce a variety of important alloys and to deoxidize steel and
desulfurize.
9) Given that the U.S. population is about 4.5% of global population, which are the mineral resources that
the U.S. consumes which are the most out of proportion to the population?
 lead, silver
10) As mineral resources become more depleted in the near future, international conflicts may result.
Based on the world map (Slide 12) showing the approximate proportion of the remaining mineral
resources, where do you see the potential for conflicts between the U.S. and other nations, and for what
minerals?
 due to how highly the us consumes silver compared to other nations and how they
are 60 % dependent on mexico peru canada and chile, if the us completes deplet
these resources they will begin to be fully dependent on previous countries,