The Asian continent is the main part of the greatest continental plate—Eurasian plate, on the Earth. The Asian continent covers the tremendous area and has a very long geological history, complex intraplate deformations, a lot of mineral resources and the changeable ecologic environment. Researching the Asian tectonics, which plays a dominant role in the resources and environments, is an interesting subject. With the rapid development of society and economy, it is becoming more and more important, interesting and urgent to re-recognize and understand the relationship between the Asia tectonic evolution and giant ore deposit (including giant or supergiant ore fields and provinces) from the perspective of lithospheric plate tectonics.

Copper is most commonly present in the earth’s crust as coppereironesulfide and copper sulfide minerals, such as chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) and chalcocite (Cu2S). The concentration of these minerals in an ore body is low. Typical copper ores contain from 0.5% Cu (open pit mines, Fig. 1.1) to 1 or 2% Cu (underground mines). Pure copper metal is mostly produced from these ores by concentration, smelting, and refining (Fig. 1.2). Copper also occurs to a lesser extent in oxidized minerals (carbonates, oxides, hydroxy-silicates, sulfates). Copper metal is usually produced from these minerals by leaching, solvent extraction, and electrowinning (Fig. 1.3). These processes are also used to treat chalcocite (Cu2S).
A third major source of copper is scrap copper and copper alloys. Production of copper from recycled used objects is 10 or 15% of mine production. In addition, there is considerable re-melting/re-refining of scrap generated during fabrication and manufacture. Total copper production in 2010 (mined and from end-of-use scrap) was ~20 million tonnes. <...>

This book describes extraction of nickel, cobalt and platinum-group metals. The starting point is ore-in-place and the finishing point is high-purity metals and chemicals.
We have combined the description of these metals in one book because they very often occur together, are extracted together and have similar properties.
The objectives of the book are to:

(a) describe how these metals occur and are extracted;
(b) explain why these extraction processes have been chosen;
(c) indicate how the processes can be operated most efficiently, with minimal impact on the environment; and,
(d) suggest future improvements.

As explained in Preface, this book is a selfcontained member of a broader knowledge system on the world's mineral deposits and their settings I have been developing and experimenting with for more than 40 years. It is a product of global firsthand information gathering in the field and "data mining" from the literature, followed by sorting and organization into interrelated sets searchable and accessible by the rapidly evolving techniques of modern information technology.

The report that follows presents a first statement of the results of a study sponsored by the European Economic Community and the Department of Trade and Industry as communicated to a meeting of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy Midlands Section at which the President (Dr A. J. Robinson) and the Section Chairman (Professor N. A. Warner) were present. It was my privilege to attend and to make some concluding remarks; these form the basis of this preface. The Geological Survey, now in its 154th year, has as one of its principal objects the provision of geological maps based on surveying in maximum detail at a scale of 1:10 000. In areas where extractive or other engineering industry is important, the surveys have been revised more than once as new subsurface data became available.

The aim of this book is to summarize the current state of knowledge on the environmental geochemistry and resource potential of metallurgical slags. Hundreds of millions of tonnes of slag, a by-product of pyrometallurgical processing of ferrous and non-ferrous ores or recyclable materials, are generated annually worldwide. These slags are either landfilled, reprocessed, or repurposed.

The notion that mining can contribute positively to the economic and human development of mineral wealth countries makes a lot of sense, especially given the huge revenue mineral wealth developing countries can generate from the sector to alleviate poverty.