UNITED STATES MINERAL RESOURCES 



INTRODUCTION 



By Donald A. Brobst and Walden P. Pratt 



CONTENTS 



The purpose of this book 



Resources or reserves? 



A warning 



Our dependence on minerals 



Classification of resources 



Public awareness, resource estimates, and geologic 



availability 



General conclusions 



Mineral potential: where do we stand? 



Low-grade ores and the environment 



Economics and waste 



The energy factor 



The need for research 



References cited 



FIGURE 



Classification of mineral resources used in this 

 volume 



TABLE 



Potential U.S. resources of some important min- 

 eral commodities 



Page 



4 



THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK 



Our civilization is dependent on minerals. Few 

 people living in the United States and other devel- 

 oped nations pass through a single day vi'ithout using 

 raw or manufactured materials that have been been 

 made from, processed by, fertilized with, or in some 

 other way affected by minerals or mineral products. 

 Without a steady supply of minerals our civiliza- 

 tion could not survive. 



Unlike most other natural resources, minerals 

 are not renewable. They are formed in the earth's 



crust by infinitesimally slow natural geologic proc- 

 esses acting for thousands or millions of years. 

 Once removed and used, they cannot be grown again. 

 The vital question, then, is this: Is our supply of 

 minerals running out? 



To answer this question, as it applies to nearly 

 all the mineral commodities in use today, is the 

 general aim of this book. More specifically, the book 

 attempts to provide answers to three basic questions 

 about each mineral commodity : (1) How important 

 is it to our present industrial civilization and stand- 

 ard of living? (2) how much of it do we have and 

 to what extent is it economically and technologically 

 available? and (3) how and where can we find more? 

 The emphasis here is on domestic resources, but 

 many chapters include information on foreign re- 

 sources, generally most complete for those commodi- 

 ties for which we are most dependent upon sources 

 abroad. 



The answers to the above questions are matters 

 that should be of concern not only to geologists 

 (both professional and student), but also to explora- 

 tion managers, research administrators, economists 

 and economic analysts, legislators, lawyers, plan- 

 ners, magazine and newspaper editors, and indeed 

 many segments of the public at large. The book has 

 been written with this varied audience in mind. 

 The descriptions of the geology and origin of min- 

 eral deposits in each chapter necessarily involve 

 some scientific jargon, but discussions of the uses, 

 importance, history of exploitation, resources, and 

 problems needing research are cast largely in non- 

 technical language so that they may be of use to 

 scientist and nonscientist alike. 



RESOURCES OR RESERVES? 



A fundamental concept in the evaluation of min- 

 eral resources is the distinction between resources 

 and reserves. Detailed definitions vary (the entire 

 problem of resource terminology is currently being 



U.S. GEOL. SURVEY PROF. PAPER 820 



