In video games players are constantly mining ore that just sits on top of the map, where do ores like copper, tin, silver, gold, iron actually come from in real life and how did we find and mine it?

Question

In video games players are constantly mining ore that just sits on top of the map, where do ores like copper, tin, silver, gold, iron actually come from in real life and how did we find and mine it?

In: 1

Answer 1

In the shortest sense, most modern mining is done in mountains and/or underground, but will vary on location, mineral, and local regulations or changes. You generally mine rocks, which will contain the goods/metal you’re after, most stuff isn’t found as “pure” metal, but instead as a compound containing the metal.

Processing those rocks into metal and other items is a really complicated process and will be different for each one, but at the end, you go through a long processing phase, and you end up with metal.

The processing part is one of the major things that held back mining a lot of metals throughout history! Even if people could find it, and know it was in there, extracting the metal from certain rocks had to be solved, and its NOT easy.