Earth's Resources, Minerals and Fossil Fuels
In 2022, Geoscience Australia reported the nation exported 894 million tonnes of iron ore, more than any other country. The smartphone in your pocket contains 62 different minerals, including lithium from Australia's Pilbara region. In this lesson you'll discover how minerals and fossil fuels form and grapple with the sustainability challenge of managing finite resources.
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Q1 · Name 5 materials in this classroom. For each, trace it back to a natural resource. What natural processes created that resource, and how long did it take?
Q2 · Australia exports more iron ore, coal, and LNG than almost any other country. Who benefits from this? Who might be disadvantaged?
● Know
- The difference between renewable and non-renewable resources
- What minerals, ores and fossil fuels are
- Australia's major mineral and fossil fuel deposits
● Understand
- How coal and oil/gas form over millions of years
- Why fossil fuels are non-renewable on human timescales
- What sustainability and circular economy mean for resource management
● Can do
- Classify resources as renewable or non-renewable with reasons
- Explain two sustainability strategies for managing Earth's resources
- Evaluate whether switching to EVs is "completely clean"
- Coal
- Solar energy
- Iron ore
- Wind energy
- Natural gas
- Renewable, replenished daily by the Sun
- Non-renewable, formed from compressed plant material over 300 million years
- Renewable, driven by solar heating of the atmosphere
- Non-renewable, formed from marine organisms over millions of years
- Non-renewable, metallic mineral ore; takes millions of years to concentrate
Your smartphone contains gold, silver, copper, lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, 62 different minerals from dozens of countries. Without mining, there are no smartphones. Without smartphones, modern life as we know it is over. Minerals quite literally shape civilisation.
Mineral vs rock: A rock is made of one or more minerals. Granite, for example, is a rock made of quartz, feldspar and mica minerals. An ore is rock that contains enough of a specific mineral to be economically worth extracting.
Metallic minerals:
- Iron ore (haematite, magnetite) → smelted to make steel. Australia's Pilbara region (WA) contains the world's largest known iron ore deposits.
- Bauxite → refined to make aluminium. Australia (Cape York, QLD; Gove, NT; Darling Range, WA) is the world's largest bauxite producer.
- Copper ore → electrical wiring, plumbing. Olympic Dam mine (SA) is one of the world's largest copper deposits.
- Gold, Kalgoorlie (WA) "Super Pit" is one of Australia's largest open-cut gold mines.
- Lithium, cobalt, nickel"critical minerals" for rechargeable batteries in EVs and electronics. Australia has major WA lithium deposits (Pilgangoora, Greenbushes).
Non-metallic minerals:
- Silica sand → glass and electronics
- Limestone (calcium carbonate) → cement and concrete
- Phosphate rock → fertilisers
- Diamond and gemstones (Argyle mine, WA was the world's largest diamond mine by volume)
Coal: Formed from ancient plant material, mainly from the Carboniferous period (~300 million years ago). Plants died and accumulated in swamps, were buried by sediment, and over millions of years heat and pressure converted them into coal. Types: lignite (brown coal, low energy density) → bituminous coal → anthracite (highest energy, hardest).
Australia is the world's second-largest coal exporter. Key deposits: Hunter Valley (NSW), Bowen Basin (QLD). Coal-fired power generation still produces about half of world electricity, though this is declining as renewables expand.
Oil and natural gas: Formed from marine microorganisms (phytoplankton, algae) that accumulated in sedimentary basins on ancient seafloors. Over millions of years, heat and pressure converted organic matter into liquid oil and gaseous methane. Extracted by drilling wells.
Australia is the world's second-largest LNG (liquefied natural gas) exporter. Key deposits: Carnarvon Basin (WA), the North West Shelf; Curtis Island (QLD), exported to Asia.
| Fossil fuel | Formed from | Time taken | Main use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coal | Ancient land plants | ~300 million years | Electricity generation, steelmaking |
| Oil (petroleum) | Marine microorganisms | ~50–300 million years | Transport fuel, plastics |
| Natural gas (LNG) | Marine microorganisms | ~50–300 million years | Heating, electricity, industrial processes |
Key downside: Fossil fuels are non-renewable, they took hundreds of millions of years to form and are being consumed in a few centuries. Burning them releases stored CO₂ into the atmosphere, contributing to the enhanced greenhouse effect.
Sustainability means using resources at a rate that doesn't prevent future generations from meeting their own needs. For non-renewable resources, true sustainability means reducing use, finding substitutes, and maximising reuse and recycling.
Key challenges:
- E-waste: Old phones, computers and electronics contain valuable recoverable metals (gold, copper, cobalt) AND toxic materials (lead, mercury, cadmium). Only about 20% of e-waste is formally recycled globally, the rest pollutes landfill or is handled unsafely in developing countries.
- Rare earth elements: Critical for magnets in wind turbines and motors in EVs. China produces ~85% of the world's supply. Mining involves processing large amounts of rock with significant environmental impacts.
Strategies for sustainable resource management:
- Circular economy: Design products for repair, reuse and recycling from the start, rather than "make → use → throw away". Reduces demand for virgin raw materials.
- Mine rehabilitation: Australian law requires mining companies to restore mined land after operations end, revegetating disturbed areas, managing water quality, removing waste piles.
- Substitution: Replacing non-renewable resources with renewable ones (solar panels replacing coal for electricity; plant-based plastics replacing petroleum-based plastics).
- Critical minerals for the energy transition: Lithium, cobalt and nickel are essential for EV batteries and renewable energy storage. Australia has major reserves of all three (WA lithium is central to the global EV revolution), creating economic opportunities while requiring careful environmental management.
Electric vehicles (EVs) use lithium-ion batteries. Each EV battery requires approximately 8 kg of lithium, 14 kg of cobalt, and 35 kg of nickel. Australia is rapidly switching to EVs to reduce carbon emissions. Predict: is this switch completely "clean"? What resource and environmental issues might arise from the mass adoption of EVs?
How close was your prediction?
Good, you recognised the trade-off between reduced operational emissions and increased mining impacts.
Key idea: EVs are cleaner to operate, but manufacturing them requires mining minerals that have their own environmental and social costs. No technology is impact-free.
At the start of the lesson, you read that each electric vehicle battery requires about 8 kg of lithium, 14 kg of cobalt and 35 kg of nickel, all of which must be mined from the Earth.
Now that you've studied Earth's mineral and fossil fuel resources, write a more informed answer: is switching to EVs actually a clean choice? Mention at least one environmental cost and one benefit.
Q1. Explain the difference between a mineral and an ore. Give one example of each found in Australia. (3 marks)
Q2. Describe how coal forms and explain two environmental concerns associated with its use. (4 marks)
Q3. What is sustainability? Explain two strategies that can be used to manage Australia's non-renewable resources more sustainably. (4 marks)
Answers
▾MCQ 1
B An ore is specifically rock that contains enough mineral to be economically worthwhile to mine. The same mineral in a lower concentration is just rock, not ore, the economic threshold is what matters.
MCQ 2
B Coal takes approximately 300 million years to form from compressed plant material. Even if humans stopped using it immediately, we could not replace it. That is the definition of non-renewable.
MCQ 3
C Haematite is an iron ore (iron oxide mineral). Silica sand, phosphate rock and limestone are all non-metallic minerals.
MCQ 4
C The Pilbara in WA contains some of the world's largest iron ore deposits. Gold is mainly in the Goldfields region (Kalgoorlie). Coal is in the Hunter Valley and Bowen Basin. Bauxite is at Cape York and Gove.
MCQ 5
C A circular economy is about keeping materials in use as long as possible through design for repair, reuse and recycling, reducing the need to extract new raw materials from the ground.
Short Answer 1
Model answer: A mineral is a naturally occurring solid inorganic substance with a definite chemical composition and crystal structure (e.g. haematite, an iron oxide mineral found across Australia). An ore is rock that contains enough of a mineral to be economically worth mining (e.g. Pilbara iron ore deposits in WA, which contain sufficient concentrations of haematite and magnetite to make large-scale mining profitable).
Short Answer 2
Model answer: Coal forms when ancient plant material (mainly from forests ~300 million years ago) is buried by sediment, then compressed and heated over millions of years, converting it into carbon-rich coal. Two environmental concerns: (1) Burning coal releases CO₂ into the atmosphere, contributing to the enhanced greenhouse effect and climate change. (2) Coal mining, especially open-cut mining, causes significant landscape disturbance, dust pollution, and can contaminate waterways with acid mine drainage if not carefully managed.
Short Answer 3
Model answer: Sustainability means using resources at a rate that does not prevent future generations from meeting their own needs. Two strategies: (1) Circular economy, designing products so their materials can be recovered and reused at the end of life. For example, designing EV batteries so the lithium and cobalt can be efficiently extracted and reused, reducing the need for new mining. (2) Substitution, replacing non-renewable resources with renewable alternatives. For example, replacing coal-fired electricity generation with solar and wind power reduces reliance on a finite, polluting resource and moves toward a renewable energy system.