Publications

The ore of mercury, cinnabar, is soft and dark red, and native mercury is one of a few metals that is liquid at room temperatures. Cinnabar from Almaden, Spain, the world’s oldest producing mercury mine, was used during Roman times, and the chemical symbol for mercury (Hg) is from "hydrargyrum," from the Greek word meaning liquid silver. Cinnabar and mercury are associated with some hydrothermal m

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Tungsten has the highest melting point of all metals, one of the highest densities and, when combined with carbon, is almost as hard as diamond. These and other properties make it useful in a wide variety of important commercial, industrial and military applications.

Together with chromium, nickel makes steel more resistant to corrosion. Stainless steel thus accounts for more than 65 percent of primary nickel consumption in the world. One of the more common grades of stainless steel is Type 304, which contains 18 to 20 percent chromium and 10.5 to 12 percent nickel. Owing to their high corrosion resistance, nickel-bearing stainless steels are widely used in th

Beryllium metal is lighter than aluminum and stiffer than steel. These and other properties, including its strength, dimensional stability, thermal properties and reflectivity, make it useful for aerospace and defense applications, such as satellite and space-vehicle structural components. Beryllium’s nuclear properties, combined with its low density, make it useful as a neutron reflector and mode

Also called barytes, barite forms in various geologic environments and is frequently found with both metallic and nonmetallic minerals. Most barite is produced by open-pit mining techniques, and most crude barite requires some upgrading to meet minimum purity or specific gravity levels.

At present, 150 companies produce common clay and shale in 41 US states. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), domestic production in 2005 reached 24.8 Mt valued at $176 million. In decreasing order by tonnage, the leading producer states include North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Ohio. For the whole year, residential and commercial building construction remained the ma

Modern societies are highly dependent upon energy and mineral resources to produce and deliver the material goods and even the services of everyday life. Although societies' dependence upon fossil fuels is evident and understood by much of the population, few people are as well informed about their dependence upon a wide variety of nonfuel minerals. This ignorance may result from two interrelated

What does boron have to do with baseball, apple pie, motherhood and Chevrolet? Boron minerals and chemicals are used in the tanning of leather baseballs and gloves; in micro-fertilizer to grow apples and in the glass and enamels of bakewares to cook apple pie; in boron detergents for soaking baby clothes and diapers; and in fiberglass parts for the Chevrolet Corvette.

Published on an annual basis, this report is the earliest Government publication to furnish estimates covering nonfuel mineral industry data. Data sheets contain information on the domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, and 5-year salient statistics for over 90 individual minerals and materials.

Tin was one of the first metals discovered by humans and, like most metals, tin is rarely used by itself. Most tin is used as a protective coating or as an alloy with other metals in a diverse range of commercial and defense applications.

Rhenium, an exotic, heat-resistant metal, has grown in importance since its discovery nearly 80 years ago. First isolated by a team of German chemists studying a platinum ore, the mineral was named for the Rhine River. From then until the 1960s, only 2 metric tons of rhenium were produced worldwide. In 2004, worldwide production was 40 metric tons.