Economic geology deals with the formation, discovery, and extraction of mineral resources. These include construction materials (sand, gravel, building stone and limestone for cement) and nonmetallic resources (feldspar, mica, clay, potash, phosphates, fluorite, barite, diamonds, gem minerals, abrasives and many others). Metallic resources include ferrous metals (iron and steel) and nonferrous metals (all other metals). Energy resources include fossil fuels, uranium, and geothermal energy.
Mineral deposits are often economically viable only because geologic processes concentrate materials above their average concentration in the Earth's crust. Concentration factors may range from only a few times for common metals like iron or aluminum to thousands of times for rare metals like uranium, platinum or gold. Some of the most important geologic settings for mineral deposits include igneous intrusions (chromium, platinum), hydrothermal deposits, or deposits left by hot, mineral-laden...
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Bibliography
Barnes, J. W., 1991. Ores and Minerals: Introducing Economic Geology. New York: Wiley, 181 pp.
Brookins, D. G., 1993. Mineral and Energy Resources: Occurrence, Exploitation and Environmental Impact. New York: Macmillan, 448 pp.
Meyer, C., 1988. Ore deposits as guides to the geologic history of the Earth. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci., 16, 147–71.
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© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Dutch, S. (1999). Economic geology. In: Environmental Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4494-1_96
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4494-1_96
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