ABSTRACT
All human societies require matter as well as energy. Metals, gems, commodities such as salt, agricultural products such as food and flax—such things have been staples of human economies since there have been humans. There are two fundamental ways of obtaining such primary materials. The first is agriculture: the use of plants to arrange raw matter into food, fiber, and structural materials such as wood. The second traditional way of obtaining primary materials is mining, which may be defined as the extraction and processing of particular useful substances from natural enhancements in the Earth. Agriculture is a sterling example of the biological inspiration: highly organized matter is assembled out of simple ambient materials using only the energy of sunlight, ultimately via the well-known process of photosynthesis. All non-agricultural materials that humanity uses are obtained from geologically anomalous enhancements—"ores"—that occur locally on Earth.
