Air, sea, surface water and soil support life, from which comes our food; the fossil remains of life, that is: coal, oil and gas, together with solar and terrestrial radiation provide energy; but almost all the artifacts of human civilization are made from substances taken from the earth's crust.

We are facing a global mineral resource crisis. In fact, we have two of them. First, Earth has a finite supply of minerals for a population that is growing faster than at any time in history
(Figure 1.1). Second, mineral consumption is growing even faster than the population. Until recently, we were deeply concerned that most minerals were used in more developed countries (MDCs) with smaller consumption in less developed countries (LDCs) (Table 1.1).

Hydrophobic Agglomeration of Fine Particles

Electrokinetic Behaviour of Sulphide Minerals: A Contribution to the Chemistry of Flotation

Bacterial Leaching of Minerals

Legal Framework for Environmental Protection in Mineral Processing Activities

Air-Pollutant Emissions and Imissions from Metallurgical Industry

Electrochemical Approach to Pollutants Removal and Destruction

Minerals and metals are essential components for the growth of human society. The need to survive taught prehistoric Paleolithic men the use of stones as tools as early as 20,000 years ago. The discovery of minerals, their exploitation, and use became many-fold with the advent of civilization and is continuing today. A mineral deposit is too small in size compared to the vast Earth’s crust. Near-surface deposits have been discovered over the centuries, ores have been mined, and metals extracted. The future search for concealed types, rarely showing surface signatures, will be opportunities and challenges. New discoveries will require state-of-the-art exploration techniques, trained labor, scientific knowledge, adequate experience, high-end data processing systems, and interpretation skills <...>

Since the arrival of European colonists in New York, the extraction of mineral wealth has been an important societal goal. Mining, then and now, provides the raw materials for consumer goods. Iron was used for cooking utensils and stoves, among other things. It was the basis for many construction projects. The availability of “hydraulic” cement was as important in the success of the Erie Canal as it is to the maintenance of the New York State Thruway. Mines provided materials to improve the standard of living of the populace. Late nineteenth century clay mines in the Hudson River Valley provided clay to make literally billions of bricks used to replace the highly flammable wooden building materials of New York City. The State of New York has, since the 1980s, ranked about fifteenth in the nation in terms of mineral value extracted annually.

Fruta del Norte is a completely concealed and extraordinarily well preserved epithermal gold-silver deposit located in the remote Cordillera del Cóndor mountain ranges of southeastern Ecuador. Currently defined resources in a single, steep, relatively small body, displaying exceptional grade continuity, contain 9.81 million ounces (Moz) of gold and 15.0 Moz of silver, with an indicated resource grade of 9.59 g/t Au and 12.9 g/t Ag. The deposit was discovered in early 2006 during a greenfields program conducted by Aurelian Resources, a Canadian junior explorer. Discovery resulted from systematic drill testing of a conceptual geologic model, which predicted that auriferous veins would be present in andesitic volcanic rocks inferred to underlie a steep silicified rib cutting a fluvial conglomerate sequence.

Geochemistry is the study of the development, and distribution of chemical elements on Earth, which are found in rock-forming minerals and their byproducts, as well as in living beings, water, and the environment. The elemental geochemical variation of sediments is used to recognize the mechanisms controlling the estuarine environment and serves as a baseline for assessing the environmental effect in the future. Geochemistry is a unique field that deals with the study of mineral deposits.

Crystal growth of diamonds at the Earth’s mantle depths of 150–800 km had been accompanied by a fragmentary capturing minerals, melts and volatile compounds (as diamond-hosted inclusions) from the parental melts. This indicates convincingly that diamonds were originated jointly with the phases of primary hermetic inclusions in a common parental medium. This opens up possibilities for evaluating the general chemistry of natural diamond-producing systems from the compositions of significantly different phases associated with diamonds in primary inclusions. Of particular value is that it has been made possible to determine the boundary compositions for the experimental systems which duplicate the natural ones responsible for genesis of diamonds and associated phases. As a consequence, the principal problems of diamond genetic mineralogy may be formulated. It became apparent, that the methodology of physico-chemical experiments is of crucial importance in solution of the genetic problems for diamonds and associated phases. <...>

Economic Geology is an important branch of Geology which deals with different aspects of economic minerals being utilised by mankind to fulfill his various needs. The economic minerals are those which can be extracted profitably. The subject provides detailed knowledge of r'l these minerals, like their origin, process of formation, mutual relations and time sequence, control of localisation, metallogemc epoch and province, and classification, besides their mineralogy, uses, modes of occurrence, geological and geographical distribution, reserves, production and all other related facts. <...>