mineral resources

• • There are more than 4,000 minerals that have been identified by scientists to occur naturally in Earth’s crust. Many of these minerals are mined for human consumption
• • Minerals can either be nonmetal or metal
• • Metallic minerals like gold, silver, and copper are called native elements and exist as pure minerals 
• • an ore is a natural material whose concentration of a mineral is high enough to be mined
• Nonmetallic minerals are things like sand, gravel, gypsum halite, uranium, and dimension stone