Renewable: replenished on short time scales (months to years)
Non-renewable: replenished on long time scales (thousands to millions of years)

Resources: known and undiscovered deposits of a geologic material
Reserves: discovered deposits that are economical and legal to extract

Metals:
Ore: concentrated enough to be extracted economically

How are metals concentrated?
At depth: magmatic, hydrothermal, and metamorphic processes at plate boundaries
Surface processes:

• leaching (Al and iron)
• groundwater (uranium, copper)
• Precipitation from solution: ( ex. Evaporites, Banded Iron Formations)
• streamflow (gold, platinum, titanium): heavy minerals mechanically deposited as placer deposits

Non-metallic resources:
limestone (for cement)
sand and gravel
phosphates
clay
diamonds, other gems

Energy resources (90% fossil fuels):
Coal: U.S. has 300 year supply
extracted by mining

Oil:

• found where trapped beneath caprock
• Most reserves are in Mideast, U.S. has some in Gulf Coast and Alaska
• Reserves: 35 to 45 years
• resources: ~100 years

Environmental Costs of Resource Use:
 

• Acid mine drainage: sulfur exposed by mining creates sulfuric acid
• mercury and cyanide used in metal extraction
• Acid Rain
• Greenhouse effect
• Oil blowouts and spills
• Subsidence