Mining Environment

Acid mine drainage is cause by which element?

• carbon
• sulfur
• nitrogen
• boron

The _____ sets standards to minimize the surface effects of coal mining on the environment.

• Clean Water Act
• Comprehensive Response Compensation and Liability Act (1980)
• Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977
• Safe Drinking Water Act

Type of surface mining that uses explosives, massive shovels, and even larger machinery called drag lines to expose seams of coal underneath

• mountaintop removal
• area strip mining
• contour strip mining
• open-pit mining

Layer of soil and rock overlying a mineral deposit

• underburden
• overburden
• lithosphere
• asthenosphere

Process in which a desired metal is separated from the other elements

• high-grade ore
• spoils
• ore
• smelting

Area in which oceanic lithosphere is carried downward under a continent at a plate boundary

• convergent plate boundary
• divergent plate boundary
• transform boundary
• subduction zone

Extraction of a metal ore or fuel resource such as coal from a deep underground deposit

• open-pit mining
• contour strip mining
• surface mining
• subsurface mining

A rock formed from heat and pressure is

• igneous
• metamorphic
• sedimentary

Sedimentary rock results from 

• heating
• melting
• erosion
• pressure

What type of materials always make up minerals?

• organic
• inorganic
• metals
• nonmetals