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Introduction

Extracting minerals and metals from the Earth for human use has been a continuously growing endeavor starting with the prehistoric Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. Mining has been described as the oldest industry and the second oldest profession. Today, the mineral industry extracts more than one hundred minerals/metals from the Earth's crust to satisfy the growing demand of minerals/metals users. These minerals occur in a great variety of rock types and structural settings.

To be of interest to industry, mineral deposits must be amenable to legal and profitable production in an environmentally sound manner; i.e., mineral deposits are (1) geological objects that can be scientifically investigated per se and as part of a local ecosystem, and (2) economic objects that must be evaluated as to permitability and profitability.

There is an old industry saying: "Ore is where you find it," meaning that one cannot wish deposits to occur where one would like them to be. Preparation for discovery entails learning what geological factors and processes control the location of mineral deposits, and developing the observation, analysis and synthesis skills to try and predict where you have a good chance of discovering a new deposit.

Since the mid-19th century, the applications of geological sciences to the discovery of new mineral deposits and to the extraction of valuable products therefrom have grown continuously in kind and effectiveness.