Apes Ch. 15

Question 1

Core

Answer 1

Core

Question 2

Tectonic plates

Answer 2

Huge rigid plates able to move extremely slowly across the earth’s surface.

Question 3

Convergent plate boundaries

Answer 3

When internal forces push two plates together

Question 4

Divergent plate boundary

Answer 4

Area where the earth’s lithospheric plates move apart in opposite directions.

Question 5

Transform fault

Answer 5

Where plates slide and grind past one another along a fracture in the lithosphere.

Question 6

Weathering

Answer 6

The physical, chemical, and biological processes that break down rocks and minerals into smaller particles that can help build soil.

Question 7

Frost wedging

Answer 7

The mechanical breakup of rock caused by the expansion of freezing water in cracks and crevices

Question 8

Mass wasting

Answer 8

the geomorphic process by which soil, sand, regolith, and rock move downslope typically as a mass

Question 9

Ore

Answer 9

A rock that contains a large enough concentration of a particular mineral.

Question 10

Rock

Answer 10

A solid combination of one or more minerals that is part of the earth’s crust.

Question 11

Igneous rock

Answer 11

rocks that form directly from magma

Question 12

Sedimentary rock

Answer 12

rocks that form when sediments (mud, sand, or gravel) are compressed by overwhelming sediments

Question 13

Metamorphic rock

Answer 13

form when sedimentary rocks, igneous rocks are subjected to high temperature and pressure

Question 14

Strip mining

Answer 14

Strip mining is useful and economical for extracting mineral deposits that lie close to the earth’s surface in large horizontal beds.

Question 15

Mountaintop removal

Answer 15

Another surface mining method is mountaintop removal. In the Appalachian Mountain area of the United States, where this form of mining is prominent, explosives, large power shovels, and huge machines called draglines are used to remove the top of a mountain and expose seams of coal, which are then removed.

Question 16

Open pit mining

Answer 16

The type of surface mining used depends on two factors: the resource being sought and the local topography. In open-pit mining machines dig holes and remove ores (of metals such as iron, copper, and gold), sand, gravel, and stone (such as limestone and marble).

Question 17

Smelting

Answer 17

Heating ores to release metals is called smelting.

Question 18

Subsurface mining

Answer 18

After suitable mineral deposits are located, several different mining techniques are used to remove them, depending on their location and type. Shallow deposits are removed by surface mining, and deep deposits are removed by subsurface mining.

Question 19

Surface mining

Answer 19

After suitable mineral deposits are located, several different mining techniques are used to remove them, depending on their location and type. Shallow deposits are removed by surface mining.

Question 20

Spoils

Answer 20

In surface mining, gigantic mechanized equipment strips away the overburden, the soil and rock overlying a useful mineral deposit. It is usually discarded as waste material called spoils.

Question 21

tailings

Answer 21

Unwanted rock and other waste materials produced when a resource is removed from the earth by mining or other excavation.

a waste when ore undergoes processing

Question 22

Gangue

Answer 22

waste rock that must be removed before a mineral can be used

The fraction of the ore containing waste minerals

Question 23

In situ leaching

Answer 23

Injecting a solution into the ground to dissolve and extract the material of interest.

Question 24

Depletion time

Answer 24

the time it takes to use up about 80% of the mineral reserves at a given rate