National Mining Week

We are studying Natural Resources, and today kicks off National Mining Week in Canada! I was poking around their website, and I found these five facts that you may find interesting:

from: http://www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/mms-smm/nmw-smc/faq-faq-eng.htm

Five Facts for National Mining Week 2009

1. Did you know most diamonds are more than a billion years old? Even the youngest were formed more than 70 million years ago. (Popular Geoscience Fact Sheet)
   
   
2. Did you know that police are nicknamed "cops" or "coppers" because their uniforms once had copper buttons and badges? (National Research Council web site)
   
   
3. Did you know aircraft and their components contain many precious and high-value metals such as gold, tungsten alloys, and titanium? Each Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 aircraft contains around 25 000 pounds of titanium, a metal valued for its strength, lightness, and resistance to heat and corrosion. (The Mining Association of Canada’s Facts and Figures 2007)
   
   
4. Did you know many consumer applications rely on mining products? Here are just a few: batteries, circuitry, computer/tv screens, cosmetics and jewellery, electricity, eyeglasses, leather clothing, musical instruments, sports equipment and helmets, sun protection, and vehicles and tires. (The Mining Associations of Canada’s Facts and Figures 2008)
   
   
5. Did you know our ability to move toward a cleaner energy economy will depend upon the availability of metals and minerals as building blocks? Hybrid vehicles draw energy from nickel hydride batteries, rechargeable batteries require lithium, and solar cells require gallium, indium and germanium. Catalytic converters, used to reduce vehicle emissions, require platinum, rhodium and cerium. Water purification systems rely on nickel and a host of rare elements. (The Mining Associations of Canada’s Facts and Figures 2008)

More Tidbits of Information:

Diamonds are made of plain old carbon, the same material found in pencils or in the graphite powder used to lubricate locks. The difference between the black powder and a brilliant gemstone lies in the way the carbon atoms are joined together. In a diamond, each carbon atom is bonded to four other carbon atoms in a pyramid-like structure. This tightly bonded structure gives a diamond its characteristic hardness. Tremendous heat and pressure are required to make a diamond, and natural diamonds can only be formed deep in the Earth. They are brought to the surface by volcanic activity and are found in "pipes" of kimberlite. Kimberlite is a type of rock named after Kimberley in South Africa, where it was first found.

Source: Popular Geoscience Fact Sheet.

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Gold plays an important role in keeping pilots safe. It is used in microelectronic circuitry in escape mechanisms, parachutes, and air-survival radios. (break here) Gold is the best metal to use in these applications because it does not corrode, crumble, or tarnish whatever the conditions; it is unaffected by moisture, oxygen, or ordinary acids, and is virtually indestructible.

Source: Minerals Information Institute.

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Rare earth metals (REM) and rare earth elements (REE) are the collection of 17 earth elements in the periodic table, namely scandium, yttrium, and 15 lanthanides. Because of their unique magnetic, fluorescent and chemical properties, REM and REE are key materials used in science innovation.

Major rare earth applications are used in hybrid vehicles. For example the Toyota Prius, which NRCan uses in its car-pool fleet, contains 30 kg (65 lb) of REE. Rare earth elements are used in motors, metal hydride batteries, glass, autocatalysts, and electronics.

Sources: Natural Resources Canada; “Rare Earths at the Crossroads,” by Dudley J. Kingsnorth (September 2008).

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The products of the minerals and metals industry help build highways, electrical and communications networks, homes, automobiles, consumer electronics, and other products essential to our everyday lives.

Here are just a few consumer applications that rely on mining products:

Batteries cadmium, lithium, cobalt
Circuitry nickel
Computer/TV screens gold, copper, aluminum, steel, lithium, titanium, silver, cobalt, tin, lead, zinc
Eyeglasses silicon, boron, lead, barium
Sports equipment strontium, phosphorus, indium
Tires limestone, feldspar, soda ash, boron, graphite, aluminum, titanium, sulphur, bromine, iodine, zinc

Source: The Mining Association of Canada's Facts and Figures 2008.