Minerals & their Uses
Diamond
Industrial diamonds are those that can not be used as gems. Large diamonds are used in tools and drilling bits to cut rock and small stone. Small diamonds, also known as dust or grit, are used for cutting and polishing stone and ceramic products.
Diatomite
Diatomite is a rock composed of the skeletons of diatoms, single-celled organisms with skeletons made of silica, which are found in fresh and salt water. Diatomite is primarily used for filtration of drinks, such as juices and wines, but it is also being used as filler in paints and pharmaceuticals and environmental cleanup technologies.
Dolomite
Dolomite is the near twin-sister rock to limestone. Like limestone, it typically forms in a marine environment but also as has a primary magnesium component. Dolomite is used in agriculture, chemical and industrial applications, cement construction, refractories, and environmental industries.
Feldspar
Feldspar is a rock-forming mineral. It is used in glass and ceramic industries; pottery, porcelain and enamelware; soaps; bond for abrasive wheels; cement; glues; fertilizer; and tarred roofing materials and as a sizing, or filler, in textiles and paper applications.
Flourite
Fluorite is used in production of hydrofluoric acid, which is used in the pottery, ceramics, optical, electroplating, and plastics industries. It is also used in the metallurgical treatment of bauxite, as a flux in open-hearth steel furnaces, and in metal smelting, as well as in carbon electrodes, emery wheels, electric arc welders, and toothpaste as a source of fluorine.
Garnet
Garnet is used in water filtration, electronic components, ceramics, glass, jewelry, and abrasives used in wood furniture and transport manufacturing. "Garnet is a common metamorphic mineral that becomes abundant enough to mine in a few rocks" (Kesler, 1994).
Germanium
"Most germanium is recovered as a byproduct of zinc smelting. It is also found in some copper ores" (Kesler, 1994). Applications include use in fiber-optic components, which are replacing copper in long-distance telecommunication lines, as well as in camera lenses and other glasses and infrared lenses.
Gold
Gold is used in dentistry and medicine, jewelry and arts, medallions and coins, and in ingots. It is also used for scientific and electronic instruments, computer circuitry, as an electrolyte in the electroplating industry, and in many applications for the aerospace industry.
Granite
Granite can be cut into large blocks and used as a building stone. When polished, it is used for monuments, headstones, countertops, statues, and facing on buildings. It is also suitable for railroad ballast and for road aggregate in highway construction.
Graphite
Graphite is the crystal form of carbon. Graphite is used as a dry lubricant and steel hardener and for brake linings and the production of "lead" in pencils. Most graphite production comes from Korea, India, and Mexico.
Gypsum
Processed gypsum is used in industrial or building plaster, prefabricated wallboard, cement manufacture, and for agriculture.
Halite
Halite (salt) is used in the human and animal diet, primarily as food seasoning and as a food preservation. It is also used to prepare sodium hydroxide, soda ash, caustic soda, hydrochloric acid, chlorine, and metallic sodium, and it is used in ceramic glazes, metallurgy, curing of hides, mineral waters, soap manufacture, home water softeners, highway deicing, photography, and scientific equipment for optical parts.
Iodine
Iodine is used as an antibacterial agent in soaps and cleaning products in restrooms, in iodized salt to prevent goiter, and in first aid boxes as an antiseptic.
Iron Ore
Iron ore is used to manufacture steels of various types and other metallurgical products, such as magnets, auto parts, and catalysts. Most U.S. production is from Minnesota and Michigan. The Earth's crust contains about 5% iron, the fourth most abundant element in the crust.
Lead
Lead is used in batteries, construction, ammunition, television tubes, nuclear shielding, ceramics, weights, and tubes or containers. The United States is largest producer (mainly from Missouri), consumer, and recycler of lead metal.
Limestone
"A sedimentary rock consisting largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which have the same composition CaCO3". Limestone, along with dolomite, is one of the basic building blocks of the construction industry. Limestone is used as aggregate, building stone, cement, and lime and in fluxes, glass, refractories, fillers, abrasives, soil conditioners, and a host of chemical processes.
Lithium
Batteries made from lithium metal or lithium carbonate are used in smoke alarms, pacemakers, defibrillator machines, many other types of portable medical equipment, and in emergency communications equipment, including computers and cell phones.