Amateur Geologist Structured Geological Glossary: Mining Geology

Structured Geological Glossary: Mining Geology

oil field	An underground accumulation of oil and gas concentrated beneath an impermeable trap, preventing its escape upward.
mineral resource analysis	Probabilistic modeling of occurrences and sizes of undiscovered deposits for mineral and energy resources evaluation and exploration.
ore	A natural deposit in which a valuable metallic element occurs in high enough concentration to make mining economically feasible.
ore mineral	The mineral of an ore that contains the useful element.
mineralization	The formation of mineral. New minerals may be added to fracture and empty spaces in a rock or by replacing preexisting minerals with different ones.
hydrothermal activity	Interaction of an aqueous solution with rock at high temperature and pressure, leading to alteration of the rock and dissolution of some of the rock mineral and formation of others.
hydrothermal activity	Any process involving high-temperature groundwater, especially the alteration and emplacement of mineral and the formation of hot spring and geyser.
replacement deposit	A deposit of ore mineral by hydrothermal solutions that have first dissolved the original mineral to form a small cavity.
vein	Tabular rock or mineral filling of a generally small crack or joint such as a quartz vein. A product of chemical precipitation from a watery solution, in contrast to a dike crystallized from magma, although gradations exist.
hydrothermal vein	A cluster of mineral precipitated by hydrothermal activity in a rock cavity.
lode	An unusually large vein or set of veins containing ore mineral.
stringer	A thin, discontinuous mineral vein or rock layer.
AMT	Audio MagnetoTelluric method in which magnetotelluric measurements are made in the audio frequency range (10-10,000 Hz) for medium to shallow depth investigation.