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Essay about Changes in Modern Day Mining Techniques

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Since the dawn of civilization, pre-historic societies have practiced the technique of mining in order to obtain minerals from the earth that could be used for the production of weapons, ornamentation, and building of structures. As society has progressed in technology and the many uses of Earth’s resources are continually developing, mining still plays a major rule in the industry of many countries. By definition, mining is described as the extraction of minerals, precious metals, and other valuable materials from the Earth; in addition, these supplies are things that lack the ability of being produced by agriculture, or artificial manufacturing in laboratories or factories, thus rendering these resources unrenewable. Therefore, a …show more content…

Presently, there exist an array of mining techniques used to retrieve resources from the earth, and the application of these different methods are based upon the material that is excavated and it’s geographically location. Regardless of the technique employed, modern mining involves several major stages which consist of: prospecting for ore bodies (in the case of oil and gas searching for deposits) , analysis of potential profit gain from a proposed cite of a resource, the actual mining of the targeted material, and the restoration of the land disturbed by the processes of mining in order to make it suitable for future use. Because many countries presently participate in mining, so much so that the industry reportedly grossed revenues of 435 billion dollars last year, it is critical to recognize that the mining process is very detrimental to the environment and is a major cause of much pollution.
Formerly stated, the mining industry is massive involving many of the world’s countries; however, it is continually growing as the demand for the resources procured from mining increases, thereby, concluding that the scope of its effects on the environment is very large. Mining not only vastly effects the environment via multiple routes of pollution, but it also is widespread throughout the planet. One of the major environmental dilemmas caused by mining is water pollution in which high concentrations of toxic chemicals such as mercury,

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