Mining in Canada: Minerals and Their Classification

Minerals in Canada

• Minerals are naturally occurring, non-living substances found in rocks, divided into three groups: metallic minerals, fossil fuels, and industrial materials.
• Canada ranks 3rd in the world for mineral production and 1st in mineral exports, exporting 80% of its minerals.

Metallic Minerals

• Examples: silver, gold, iron, cobalt, copper, lead, nickel, platinum, uranium, and zinc.
• When refined, they yield the group of materials known as metals.
• Exploration is critical to find more reserves, as minerals are non-renewable resources.

Mining Metallic Minerals

• Strip mining: removes trees, earth, and rock, sometimes using blasting, and loads material onto trucks for processing.
• Open pit mining: used for minerals near the surface, removes trees, earth, and rocks, and blasts ore into trucks.
• Underground mining: extracts minerals deep underground, using elevators and drilling.

Processing Metallic Minerals

• Milling: separates valuable minerals from waste ore through crushing, separating, filtering, and drying.
• Tailings: dangerous waste materials left after milling, dumped into tailing ponds to eventually turn into solid waste.

Mining Issues

• Acid precipitation
• Abandoned mines
• Exported jobs

Agriculture

• Two climate variables that affect agriculture: solar energy and moisture.
• Growing degree days: calculates the amount of heat by determining the number of degrees the average temperature exceeds 6°C on a given day.
• The growing season: the number of days the crop can ripen.
• The frost-free period: the number of days between the last frost in the spring and the first frost in the autumn.

Soil and Agriculture

• Soil is composed of minerals, water, air, bacteria, and humans.
• Biology: some organisms are highly beneficial to farming, such as earthworms and bees.
• Topography: level, well-drained land is generally best for farming, with fertile valleys and deltas being excellent.

Importance of Agriculture

• Crop and animal production contribute about 1.4% to Canada's GDP.
• About 20% of Canadian jobs are related to agriculture when involving the growing, processing, transportation, and selling of food.
• Land: the basic resource, with Class 1-Deep soils being excellent for farming, representing 0.5% of Canada's land, and Class 7- no capability for farming, representing 86.6% of Canadian land.

Types of Farming

• Natural factors: soil fertility, precipitation levels, and the length of growing season.
• Economic factors: cost or value of land, proximity to market, and competition.