Topic > Changes in Modern Mining Techniques - 1022

Since the dawn of civilization, prehistoric societies have practiced the technique of mining to obtain minerals from the earth that could be used to produce weapons, ornaments, and structure-building items . As society has made technological advances and the multiple uses of the Earth's resources are continually developing, mining still plays an important role 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; furthermore, these supplies are things that cannot be produced by agriculture or artificial production in laboratories or factories, thus making these resources non-renewable. Therefore, a broad definition of mining is the removal of a non-renewable resource from the earth which includes: base metals, uranium, iron, limestone, coal, rock salt, potash, diamonds, precious metals, petroleum, natural gas and even waterfall. Although the practice of mining is as archaic as the civilizations that first used it, modern mining differs greatly from the techniques of the past. Due to the advancement of modern technology and greater demand for these non-renewable resources, current mining is tremendously more evasive than its prehistoric form, and with the vast increase in the world's population, greater quantities of materials are being extracted from the earth than ever before. the quantities used by the first civilizations. As mentioned above, the modern techniques used for mining are extremely different from those of prehistoric times. In the early days of mining history, ancient people excavated materials close to the earth's surface with improvised shovels and shovels; As you might imagine, this... medium... old mining is the primary source of human-caused mercury emissions, while smelting metals, including gold, is a primary source of mercury emissions. arsenic and other toxins”. Smelting, which is a particular method of metal extraction, releases toxins into the air such as: lead, nitrogen, sulfur, mercury, zinc, cadmium, uranium and sulfur dioxide, which leads to acid rain. Furthermore, smelters release very dangerous greenhouse gases called peflurocarbons (pollution caused by aluminum smelters) which are almost 9,200 times more capable of trapping heat than carbon; furthermore, these greenhouse gases will remain in the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years. All of the above environmental tribulations caused by mining have the potential to irreversibly damage the planet, however, mining also has a social, economic, political and cultural impact on the world..