Mention the word mining to someone in the United States and you are sure to strike an emotional response. Two common perceptions of mineral extraction are: 1) that mineral production is necessary for the maintenance of civilization, and with the extraction of natural resources as our economic base we derive everything that we use, and we can further an ever-improving standard of living. This is the model that has brought relative wealth to the developed nations; and 2) that mineral resources are inherently limited, that ever-expanding consumption will lead to global impoverishment by environmental degradation, that mining despoils the land for short-term profit at the expense of long-term sustainability, that for the 21st century, we need a new model of development.

This course starts by covering the geology of ore deposits - the geologic and geochemical conditions by which they form, for various minerals, and how they are distributed in the world. Then, the course proceeds to discussions of specific important minerals - What are the important minerals that are used by people? To what purpose are they put? In what quantity are they extracted? This leads naturally into questions of present and future mineral supplies. What is a 'reserve' of a mineral? How do people predict the duration of supplies of minerals? Should one panic after hearing statistics that there are only a few years or decades of reserves for minerals X, Y, or Z?

Possibly the most interesting aspects of the course (certainly for some of you) are the laws and politics of mineral supply. The political power of mineral supply has been made brutally clear by the 1973 Mideast Oil Embargo and the 1991 and subsequent Gulf Wars. Many people have seen news of controversy surrounding the US 1872 Mining Law, which governs hard-rock mining, allowing mining corporations easy, virtually royalty-free access to Federal lands, includung National Parks, Forests, and Wilderness. Wisconsin possesses significant deposits of copper and other minerals - the earliest European communities in the state sprang up around deposits of lead and copper. Until recently the state was embroiled in public debate regarding a proposal for an underground copper mine near Crandon.

Course Policies and Procedures:

Title: Geology (Environmental Studies) 410

Semester: Fall 2005

Time: TR 2:30 - 3:45

Prof:

Phil Brown
365 Weeks Hall
Office Hours: 1:20 T, W and by appointment
262-5954
pbrown@geology.wisc.edu

Textbooks:

One or more copies of the following references are on reserve in the Geology Library, 4th Floor, Weeks Hall:

1. CVS: Resources of the Earth, 3rd ed, JR Craig, DK Vaughan and BJ Skinner, Prentice Hall, N.Y., 2001, 520 p.
2. MREE: Mineral Resources: Economics and the Environment, S.E. Kesler, Macmillan, 1994, 391 p.
3. ATC: At the Crossroads, Eugene Cameron, John Wiley & Sons, NY, 1986, 320 p.
4. Cameron Volume on Unconventional Mineral Deposits, W.C. Shanks (ed.), A.I.M.E., N.Y., 1983, 246 p.
5. Earth Resources, Brian Skinner, Prentice Hall, N.Y., 1986 (3rd edition), 184 p.
6. Resources and Development, P. Dorner and M. El-Shafie (eds.), Univ. Wisc. Press, Madison, WI, 1980, 500 p.

Grades:

Grades will be assigned for the course based upon class attendance and participation (10%), completion of the micro-paper assignments (15%), a midterm (20%) and a final exam (25%) and a term project or paper (30%) due by Dec 11. Detailed instructions will follow for the term project or paper but the paper will require a draft submitted prior to the final version. The final exam will be a take home handed out during the last week of class and due by the end of the scheduled official final exam period which is 7:45 am Saturday, December 17, 2005.

Go here for details regarding each paper, including examples of past papers.

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