Human+Impact+of+Mining

Mining

[|Anti Mining Protest Video]

Mining is digging up the earth's surface for fossil fuels and natural minerals. Humans damage the environment by drilling holes to find fossil fuels and natural minerals for everyday human activity.

**Effects of Mining On The Environment:** Mining creates air,noise, water and soil pollution. Mines produce a lot of waste and often this waste is dumped in our local environment. Smelting is when miners burn the dirt that they dig up so they can get the minerals out of the soil. So when they burn the soil harmful gases and chemicals are released into the air, water and soil. Sometimes the land is so damaged after mining so that part of the land never recovers. The damage that mining causes to the enviroment continues for a long time after the mines are no longer being use.

‍‍‍‍‍‍ **Interesting facts:** For the first time in Australia history some miners have found a pink diamond that cost a lot and a lot of money. Here are some natural minerals. **‍Natural Minerals**
 * Iron ore
 * Nickel
 * Bauxite
 * aluminum
 * Copper
 * Gold
 * Silver
 * Uranium
 * Diamond
 * Opal
 * Zinc
 * Coal
 * Oil shale
 * Petroleum
 * Natural gas
 * rare earths ‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍

There are two different types of mining -Coal mining and Uranium.

The coal indrusty began in 1798 when ship owners gathers surface coal at Newcastle and brought it to Sydney for sale.

Mines kill or injure thousands of people every year. And they rob whole communities of their livelihoods.

In many countries, mines block people’s access to roads, schools, health care, water supplies, jobs, and opportunities to get ahead.



**Effect on Land** //Deforestation//: Mining requires large areas of land to be cleared so that the earth could be dug into by the miners. For this reason, large-scale deforestation is required to be carried out in the areas where mining has to be done. Besides clearing the mining area, vegetation in the adjoining areas also needs to be cut in order to construct roads and residential facilities for the mine workers. The human population brings along with it other activities that harm the environment.

**Effect on Water** //Pollution//: Chemicals like mercury, cyanide, sulfuric acid, arsenic and methyl mercury are used in various stages of mining. Most of the chemicals are released into nearby water bodies that leads to water pollution. In spite of pipes being used to dispose these chemicals into the water bodies, possibilities of leakage are always there. When the leaked chemicals slowly percolate through the layers of the earth, they reach the groundwater and pollute it. Surface run-off of just soil and rock debris, although non-toxic, can be harmful for vegetation of the surrounding areas.

**Effect on air pollution:** when smelting is active the pousinous gases are exposed into our ecosystem and are destroying our ozone layer and atmosphere. The more every day items we make from the minerals which increases the greenhouse gasses in our world and increases the chance of global warming and melting us to a crisp.

There are many different types of ways to power a factory and one way is to use natural uranium. Uranium is a natural resource that is quite rare and can power a whole factory with just one fuel rod and can last for around one week continuously on use. There are two different types of mining: open-cut mining and underground mining. In order to mine uranium it needs to be an open-cut mine. Once it has been mined it needs to put it in a safe place where it can not be damaged.

Year 6 Introduction Mining is damaging the environment. The more humans produce and comsume, the more resources are needed to be mined. Humans need to find ways to reduce the amount of non-renewable resources that we use. MINING Mining involves digging into the Earth's surface and extracting mineral resources and fossil fuels. Mining requires very heavy machinery and a lot of land and space. Mining puts the toxic materials in the water supply. Delivery of the product uses even more polluting fossil fuels, All of the packaging ends up in landfill, along with the product itself. Manufacturing pollutes the environment- some industries more than ohers. Fossil fuels are natural fuels that were formed millions of years ago from the remains of living plants and animals. Oil, gas and coal are types of fossil fuels. We use these fuels to make electricity, cook our food and to run our cars. = By Nicholas and Sergio =