Talk:Mining

The first sentence is now "Since the beginning of civilization, people have used stone, ceramics and, later, metals found on or close to the Earth's surface." Aren't naturally occurring ceramics (and amorphous glass) called stones? What about before civilization?

How about "For millions of years, our ancestors have used stone, clay and, increasingly, metals found on or close to the Earth's surface."

Mining is the extraction of valuable geological materials from the Earth and other astronomical objects.

Really? Where are the reliable sources that demonstrate current mining activities on astronomical objects other than the Earth?

Is there any need to specify the Earth? Why not say something like:

Mining is the extraction of geological resources from the planetary crust., or

Mining is the process of extracting geological resources from the regolith or bedrock.

or following, eg. the lede from Atmospheric mining: Mining is the process of extracting valuable materials or other non-renewable resources from the planetary crust.

Using science fiction as a counter-example to justify the current lede is ... fictional; if we are concerned with such uses of mining, then Adamantium,Dilithium (Star Trek), Computronium, and Unobtainium should have their own mineral pages (along with the relevant mining processes and hazards).

— 20040302 (talk) 13:16, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

:I made changes based on the [https://www.britannica.com/technology/mining Encyclopedia Brittanica] approach. Reconrabbit 20:51, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

"(As time goes on and richer deposits are exhausted – and technology improves – this number is going down to .5 g and less.)"

This could be changed to, "When richer, better quality deposits are exhausted, new technology is needed to exact less ore from worse quality deposits." The original is unclear on how less ore is mined when technology is improving. I also can't find a citation for the 0.5g so I omitted this from my edit suggestion. The citation I used for this is Patiño Douce, A.E. (2016) Metallic Mineral Resources in the Twenty-First Century. I. Historical Extraction Trends and Expected Demand. Nat Resour Res 25, 71–90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-015-9266-z Mbrookemac (talk) 01:55, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

{{dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment | course = Wikipedia:Wiki_Ed/Carleton_University/ERTH_4303_Resources_of_the_Earth_(Winter_2024) | assignments = Russellmorden | start_date = 2024-01-12 | end_date = 2024-04-10 }}

— Assignment last updated by Russellmorden (talk) 21:47, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

The contents are either already at Mining or easily could be. I don't see a rationale for keeping this as a separate article. It would be a useful redirect term. Opolito (talk) 20:20, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose The article on Stone industry already says it is "similar to the mining industry, but concerned with excavations of stones, in particular granite, marble, slate and sandstone. Other products of the industry include crushed stone and dimension stone." Servite et contribuere (talk) 04:24, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::Agree. It is useful to have a separate page because nuances get lost in the main Mining page. Hukapapa (talk) 22:20, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

:Over all i feel keeping it as a separate page makes it easier for students doing geography subjects as well as people looking to find out the important information it provides. would recommend keeping it as a separate page. ProfesserMOORE (talk) 04:16, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

:Merge instead to Quarry, which covers quarrying, the American English term for excavating stone. That article was started years before Stone industry. This will keep the topic as a separate page. Mining is written in summary style and already has many sections linking to child articles. A section on quarrying can be added. Quarry should be named Quarrying, just as Mining is not named "Mine". StarryGrandma (talk) 13:16, 19 June 2025 (UTC)