What Is Mineral Mining And What Do You Need To Know About Its Environmental Impact?

Mineral mining impacts can continue to haunt our planet for many years, especially with greenhouse gases, habitat, land erosion, humanitarian crisis and other results making their mark on our world. It is no secret that mining operations that aren't managed correctly can threaten our environment and biodiversity in an area much bigger than the mine itself. With this in mind, workers must approach mineral mining more carefully to take advantage of its benefits. ‍

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What is Mineral Mining?

First, let's talk about what mineral mining is. Mineral mining is the procedure of extracting minerals from below the Earth's surface. Minerals refer to inorganic substances which occur solidly and naturally and are mined since they provide valuable materials commonly used within society. However, reaping the practical benefits of minerals doesn't come without consequences regarding the mining process.

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How Do We Mine For Minerals?

We can utilize a few different methods to mine minerals, although the most common ones are underground, surface, and placer mining. Whatever procedure is used will depend on factors such as mining costs, the location of the mineral, and its shape and strength.

Machinery is used to drill the rock, which is transferred above the Earth's surface via a conveyor belt or truck. Underground methods are typically more expensive than other procedures, although they are necessary to obtain higher-grade metallic ores. Once acquired, the workers transfer the minerals to a place to separate them from any waste material.

Workers can extract lower-grade ores and industrial minerals with surface mining, which typically costs less than the more complex underground procedures. The process involves the rock being drilled and blasted near the surface of the Earth. However, since some minerals are already soft at this stage, they don't require the blasting part of the process.

Placer mining can extract valuable minerals from beaches, rivers, and other sediments. Workers rinse these mined minerals to concentrate the heavier minerals in this process.

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‍The Impact Of Mining

Of course, no mining activity is complete without social and environmental impacts. Activities like construction, exploration, maintenance, and operation can have positive and negative outcomes, with some happening directly and others indirectly. Let's take a look at some of the most common effects below.

The mining activities listed above could trigger negative environmental impacts on land-use change. We associate this factor with the following:

• Erosion
• Deforestation
• Noise pollution
• Dust pollution
• Contamination of streams
• Contamination of soil
• Emissions

Each of these issues brings negative impacts on our communities and surrounding wildlife.

Other activities, such as mine abandonment, repurposing, and decommissioning, can also result in some of the issues listed above, including water and soil contamination. Furthermore, the groundwork laid for mining, like roads and railway tracks, can destroy habitats and impact animals' routes. In turn, this could reduce our planet's precious biodiversity.‍

With all this being said, we cannot neglect to look at the impact that mineral mining brings for the local economy. For example, mining brings the perfect opportunity for communities to boost themselves economically by providing a range of jobs. This factor can help support families locally, as long as humanitarian factors are addressed at a state and International level.

Furthermore, we can nurse the possible environmental impacts of mining through methods such as ecological restoration and water treatment. By ensuring that we give the water surrounding the mines careful attention, this process could have a good effect on environmental systems.

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Key Takeaways: 

• We can take away many things from this article, including the fact that mineral mining may be more damaging to our environment than you first thought. While mineral mining has many benefits, we should always consider its environmental impact.

• Secondly, water treatment may be an excellent way to solve the issues associated with mineral mining. Humans can start to undo their adverse effects on our environment by offering a remedy to areas affected by mineral mining.

• Finally, humans must consider how their actions affect our environment and biodiversity. Even by laying some simple groundwork, like roads and railway tracks, individuals have the potential to destroy animal habitats, meaning that we need to consider every approach in a more eco-friendly way.