Portal:Mining

Topics Culture Geography Health History Mathematics Nature People Philosophy Religion Society Technology The Mining Portal 65px Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or (coal) seam. Any material that cannot be grown and harvested through agricultural processes (such as farming or forestry), or created artificially in a laboratory or factory, is usually mined. Materials recovered by mining include metals, ranging from base metals (such as iron and lead) to precious metals (such as gold and silver) to uranium, as well as coal, gemstones, limestone, marble, oil shale, rock salt, guano and potash. Mining in a wider sense comprises extraction of any non-renewable resource (e.g., petroleum, natural gas, or even water). Mining has long been an essential part of human civilization and technology. In the Neolithic Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age, mining provided the stone, copper and tin to make the bronze, and the iron. Discoveries of valuable minerals have sparked gold and silver rushes, leading to the mass migration of many thousands of individuals to places around the world. With the invention of the steam engine, coal mining became critical to fueling the Industrial Revolution. Newer technologies such as nuclear power and consumer electronics have increased demands for previously unimportant minerals, leading to new cycles of mineral discovery and mining. Template:/box-footer A bal maiden, from the Cornish language bal (mine) and the English maiden (young or unmarried woman), was a female manual labourer in the mining industries of Cornwall and the bordering areas of western Devon, at the south-western extremity of Great Britain. A boom in Cornish mining in the late 17th and early 18th centuries resulted in increasing numbers of women and girls were recruited to the area's mines from about 1720 to the 1770s, processing the ore sent up by the male miners underground. With the rise of the Industrial Revolution, women and girls were again recruited in large numbers for work in ore processing. Although machinery was capable of performing much of the work done by bal maidens, the industry grew so quickly that the number of women and girls working grew steadily even though their numbers fell as a proportion of the workforce to 15–20% by 1850. At the peak of the Cornish mining boom, in around 1860, at least 6000 bal maidens were working at the region's mines. From the 1860s onward, Cornish mining went into decline In 1891 the number of bal maidens had fallen to half its peak, and by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 very few remained in employment. In 1921 Dolcoath, the last mine to employ bal maidens, ceased operations, bringing the tradition to an end. 150px ... that Glensanda was an ancient deserted settlement in the Highlands of Scotland, but is now a super-quarry which exports 6,000,000 tons of granite every year (pictured)? ... that the three mine policy, in place from 1984 to 1996, restricted the number of active uranium mines in Australia to three? ... that after losing both arms in a coal mining accident, Vladislav Titov wrote several books by holding a pen with his teeth? ... that Franklin Mountains State Park in El Paso, Texas, is the site of the only tin mine ever operated in the United States? Template:/box-header A random generator will select an article about … … mining equipment … a mine, mining district, or mining community … a miner … a mining company or holding … mine safety or mining disasters … anything related to mining! Polished opal from a mine in Queensland, Australia Template:/box-header WikiProject Mining is the hub for coordinating improvement of mining-related articles. Related WikiProjects Geology • Rocks and Minerals • Soil • Volcanoes • Technology • Energy • Ghost towns Bagger 288, a gigantic bucket-wheel excavator at the Garzweiler surface mine in Germany, and the largest land vehicle in the world when it was finished in 1978 Outline of mining Mineral Ore Miner Mining engineering Mining museum Mineral Processing Extractive metallurgy Mining by mineral: Coal Copper Gold Iron Salt Silver Tin Uranium Zinc Earth Sciences Engineering Technology Energy Sustainable development Agriculture and Agronomy Science History of science    Philosophy of science    Systems science    Mathematics    Biology    Chemistry    Physics    Earth sciences    Technology    What are portals? List of portals Featured portals