About Mineral Resources

What are Minerals and Rocks?

A mineral is an element or an inorganic compound that occurs naturally and is solid. It usually has a crystalline internal structure. All of the earth's crust except the rather small proportion composed of organic material, is made of minerals.
Some minerals consist of a single element, such as gold, silver, diamond (carbon), and sulphur. There are many minerals such as salt, mica, and quartz that have an economic importance.

Rock is any material that makes up a large, natural, continuous part of the earth's crust. Some kinds of rock, such as limestone and quartzite contain only one mineral, but most rocks consist of two or more minerals.

What are Mineral Resources?

A mineral resource is a concentration of naturally occurring solid, liquid, or gaseous material, in or on the earth's crust that can be extracted and converted into useful materials at an affordable price. The earth's internal and external processes have produced numerous mineral resources, which on a human time scale is essentially non-renewable because of the slowness of the rock cycle. Mineral resources include energy resources (coal, oil, natural gas, uranium, geothermal energy), metallic mineral resources (iron, copper, aluminium), and non-metallic mineral resources (salt, gypsum, clay, sand, phosphates, water, and soil).

Valuable Mineral Resources - Gems

Below are valuable mineral resources that can extensively boost a country's economic growth :

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