Annually, a huge amount of various minerals and rocks are extracted from the bowels of the Earth, which are subsequently used in various industries. So, gas is made from oil, our houses are heated with gas, and magnificent sculptures and fountains are made from granite and marble. In this article, we will talk about the legend of minerals that are used in mapping. And show how they look.
Minerals and their types
Minerals are mineral formations with certain physical and chemical properties that allow them to be effectively used in the field of material production. In the thickness of the earth's crust they lie in the form of lenses, layers or placers. Sometimes mineral deposits are concentrated in a small area, forming provinces or basins.
According to the state of aggregation, minerals are solid, liquid, or gaseous; by origin, they are organic or inorganic. They are also divided into three large groups:
- Ore (or metal): gold, silver, platinum, titanium, nickel, uranium, iron ore.
- Non-metallic (or non-metallic): granite, marble, kaolin, graphite, limestone, sand.
- Fuel (or combustible): oil, peat, coal, natural gas, crystalline hydrates.
The quality of a particular mineral resource is determined by its physical (density, color, humidity), chemical (oxidizability, radioactivity), mechanical (hardness) properties, as well as particle size distribution. Mining began in the Paleolithic era. Today, resources such as oil, gas, coal, phosphorites and non-ferrous metal ores are most intensively extracted from the bowels of the earth.
Below you can see what kind the most famous conventions (iron ore, coal, gas, oil, peat) have. What do the deposits of other minerals on maps represent? This will be discussed later.
Mineral Conventions
On geological, physical and economic maps, you can find special graphic signs denoting certain mineral deposits. They are generally accepted and have one look (see photo below). In most cases, the legend of minerals is represented by simple or complex geometric shapes. Sometimes they resemble the outlines of the mineral raw materials that they depict. For example, the peat symbol is similar to briquettes of this fuel stacked on top of each other.
Sometimes, conventional colored circles are used as symbols for minerals on maps (usually ore). Inside each of them, the Latin designation of this or that metal is indicated (for example, Fe - iron, Pb - lead, Zn - zinc, etc.). See an example of such a card below. It was taken from the Soviet geological encyclopedia published in 1984-1990.
In addition, there is a certain GOST (No. 2.857-75), approved in 1979. It developed its own color system of mineral symbols, which is used exclusively in mining. So, for example, in this GOST, manganese ores are indicated by a purple shade, copper ores by green, but mercury ores by red.
Combustible minerals
Fuel resources, as a rule, are displayed on maps with conventional symbols of black color. Let's find out what the most common ones look like:
- Coal - a shaded equilateral square.
- Brown coal - a square with a diagonal hatching.
- Oil - isosceles shaded triangle.
- Gas is an isosceles empty triangle.
- Oil shale - shaded parallelogram.
- Peat is a pyramid of three rectangles.
Interestingly, the symbol for oil is very similar to a real oil rig.
Ore Minerals
Deposits of ores of ferrous and non-ferrous metals on geographical maps are often indicated by red symbols. Let's find out what kind the most common of them have:
- Iron ore is a filled equilateral triangle.
- Manganese ore is a sign resembling a crown with two teeth.
- Titanium - a rhombus with a shaded left half.
- Molybdenum is a rhombus with a square inside.
- Tungsten is an empty square.
- Aluminum is a square with a circle inside.
- Copper is a filled rectangle.
- Mercury is an empty circle.
- Gold - a circle with a shaded left half.
Non-Metallic Minerals
Non-metallic mineral resources (including various building materials) on maps quite often (but not always) are shown by green symbols. Here are some of them:
- Asbestos is a simple cross.
- Mica - diagonally crossed square.
- Potash salt - a cube with shaded upper and side faces.
- Rock salt - a cube with unpainted faces.
- Glauber's salt is an inverted t-shaped sign.
- Sulfur is an equilateral triangle with a shaded left half.
- Quartz is a rhombus with a shaded right half.
- Limestone is a square crossed on both diagonals.
- Phosphorites - a filled circle with a vertical slot.
An interesting fact: the symbol of graphite is reminiscent of a pencil in which, as you know, a graphite rod is used.
Finally
Now you know how mineral symbols appear on maps. The most common of them should be memorized to every educated person. These are primarily the icons of oil, natural gas, iron ore, coal and peat. But to know what the designations of other mineral resources look like will also not be superfluous.