'What is ore geology?' Unfortunately, it is not possible to give an unequivocal answer to this question if one wishes to go beyond saying that it is a branch of economic geology. The difficulty is that there are a number of distinctly different definitions of ore.

Initial discussions regarding the publication of an Ore Mineral Atlas began in 1999. Jason Dunning, then the president of the Mineral Deposits Division and a keen student of ore deposits, thought that there was a need for a simple atlas of ore minerals that would serve as a field reference guide for working geologists and students. Our subsequent years spent in the classroom have reinforced the need for this book. A great debt of thanks is owed to the students who suffered through optical mineralogy labs without this atlas. Our students were fundamental in drawing attention to required contents, in finding mineral specimens, textures or optical properties worthy of photographing, and in some cases researching information on the optical properties or the environment of formation of some minerals.

The recognition and interpretation of ore textures is a difficult task, and the problem is compounded firstly by the relatively low priority given to the subject within most tertiary training institutions, and secondly by the lack of simple well illustrated texts. Special reference needs to be focused upon features which are visible to the eye or observed via a hand lens. These are the most valuable to practicing field geologists. <...>

It is often assumed that when China becomes aroused to the need of equipping herself with the tools and technique of America and Europe, there will be a great and rapid industrial and commercial advance comparable with that of England, Germany, and the United States during the last century. Her supposed untold wealth, in uvast resources” of raw materials and man power, when organized, is to produce, we are told, both the fiercest industrial competition the world has ever seen and the greatest potential market. The Industrial Revolution of the West, it is forebodingly asserted, is only the curtain-raiser for the vaster drama of the twentieth century to be played in Asia, where “the stage seems set for catastrophe.”