Gems, Minerals, Rocks & Mining

So Damek's interest in the indie game Minecraft has led him (and us in turn) into learning more about gems, minerals, rocks and the whole mining process in general.  We ordered some sample gem and mineral kits from Live Studies (we were ordering harvester ants for Damek's space age ant farm and came across the gems and minerals which Damek really wanted as well).  Now, in addition to his rock collection, which he started a few years ago, he now has a gem and mineral collection as well.

The day the samples came, we opened them up and as we read what each one was, Damek proceeded to tell us all about the majority of them.  

My brother (Uncle Joe) works at Newmont Gold Mine in Nevada, where he helps to run the mine on computers, which Damek has been asking about lately.  Lo and behold, last week in the Clickschooling email we get, there was a link to a virtual tour of a gold mine in South Africa, which Damek has started watching and reading about.  Also, much to Damek's surprise, since we've never talked about it or had  reason to go there, we informed him that there is a huge copper mine on the west side of our valley, about a 45 minute drive from our house.  Of course he wanted to go, so yesterday afternoon after Lee got home from work, we went.  He was a little bummed because we couldn't actually go in the mine, but was pretty fascinated getting to see the pit from the overlook and seeing the enormous trucks hauling loads of rock up and down the roads, as well as getting to go through the visitor's center where we got to see and learn more about copper and the products that contain copper and a short video about the mine itself.  We learned that this mine, in addition to the copper, also mines smaller amounts of gold, silver, molybdenum and sulfuric acid.

Grandma helping Damek with the binoculars

The trucks, which are as a big as a house, can carry 255-360 tons of rock.

Checking out an antique bucket that was used in the early days of mining 

Damek measuring himself against the huge truck tire.    Each truck has 6 of these tires that cost $25,000 each and last for only 9 months.

looking at a drill bit that is used in the mining process

mining paraphanelia

Kyan looking at mineral samples through the microscope

Damek and grandma looking at different minerals

Some interesting facts we learned at the visitor's center were:

-  The first known use of copper dates back 10,000 years.

-  To make all the pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters in 1999, the U.S. Mint used about 36,000 tons of coppper.  That's about as much refined copper as Kennecott produces every 41 days.

-  Each american uses more than 40,000 pounds of new minerals every year.

-  It takes about 15 different minerals to make a car, 35 different minerals to make a t.v., 30 different minerals to make a computer and as many as 42 different minerals to make a telephone.