ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the mining of most industrial minerals. An industrial mineral may be defined as any rock, mineral, or other naturally occurring substance of economic value, exclusive of metallic ores, mineral fuels, and gemstones. The mining of these minerals does not have environmental impacts at a national or even at a regional scale. It does, however, create local surface disturbance, disrupted drainage systems, and particulate emissions at the many and widely dispersed surface mining operations.
