Outline of mining

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to mining:
Mining - extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Any material that cannot be grown from agricultural processes, or created artificially in a laboratory or factory, is usually mined.

Basic concepts

Mineral
Rock (geology), an aggregate material usually made up of a number of minerals
Ore, rock containing a desired mineral
* Ore genesis, the geological processes by which ore is formed and deposited
* Ore grade, the amount of a desired mineral or metal that a quantity of ore contains
**high grade ores are rich in the mineral desired, low-grade ores have less of the mineral desired
* Gangue, minerals within the ore that are not desired; these are removed during ore processing
*Vein (geology) a geological formation that often contains ore
Overburden, the material on top of a given mineral deposit

Some examples of materials that are extracted from the earth by mining include:

Surface mining, mining conducted down into the ground, but with the sky open above
Open-pit mining, where the overburden is removed and put in a different location, leaving a large pit at the end.
Strip mining, where the overburden is stripped off and placed onto the area where the mineral has already been mined out, allowing the surface to be returned to roughly how it was before
Mountaintop removal mining, where the overburden on a mountain is pushed off the mountain into the adjacent valley
Quarrying
Placer mining
Dredging
Hydraulic mining, using high-pressure jets of water to blast soil or hillsides apart

Sub-surface mining, mining conducted underground
*Two main types of underground mining, classified by the characteristic of the rock being mined:
**Underground mining (hard rock)
**Underground mining (soft rock)
*There are three directions by which an underground mine may be conducted:
Drift mining, mining horizontally
Shaft mining, mining vertically
Slope mining, mining at an inclined angle
*Stoping is the process of extracting out the ore from underground, leaving a hole called a stope
Room and pillar
Longwall mining
Retreat mining
Fire-setting, a method used in stoping by setting fires to timber and letting the resulting collapse break up the rock

Steam shovel, used from the 19th century to the 1930s
Power shovel, derived from the steam shovel, but using electricity instead of steam
Excavator, derived from the steam shovel, but using hydraulics or pneumatics instead of steam
Draglines use buckets attached to long cable lines, rather than affixed to a beam
Bucket-wheel excavator, the largest moving land machines ever built
Dredge

Explosives
*Gunpowder or black powder, used from the 17th century to the mid-19th century
*Dynamite, used from the mid-19th century into the 20th century, still used some today
*ANFO, used from the 20th century, and the primary explosive in use today
Blasting gear
*Detonator, a small explosive charge used to set off the main explosive
*Blasting machine, a device used to generate or send an electric charge to the detonators

Engines used in mining

Ore dressing
*General methods of ore processing
**Froth flotation
**Trommel
*Methods peculiar to gold placer mining. Gold is much denser than many other minerals, various methods use this to separate it out:
**Gold panning, uses a pan in water to wash material
**Rocker box
**Sluice box
**Drywasher, used where there is insuffician
Extractive metallurgy
*Pyrometallurgy, using heat
**Smelting
**Cupellation
*Hydrometallurgy, using aqueous solutions
**Leaching, using an acid to remove. Commonly used for gold and copper
**Amalgamation, using liquid mercury to extract the metal. Used to separate out silver and gold.
*Electrometallurgy, using electricity to separate out metals