Week 4 worksheet
ENV/100
August 16, 2013
Tiffany Alvarez

Week 4 worksheet
How do minerals affect society?
Minerals can affect society in many ways for example; Surface mining destroys vegetation across large areas, increasing erosion. Open-pit mining uses huge quantities of water. Acid mine drainage is pollution caused when dissolved toxic materials wash from mines into nearby lakes and streams. Minerals is approximately 80 percent of mined ore consists of impurities that become wastes after processing. These wastes, called tailings, are usually left in giant piles on the ground or in ponds near the processing plants (Figure 12.9). The tailings contain toxic materials such as cyanide, mercury, and sulfuric acid. Left
Forestry and Rangeland Resources and Management Strategies
Differentiate between government-owned lands and public lands. Which government agencies are involved with government-owned lands? What is the purpose of government-owned lands?
Private Citizens, corporations, and nonprofit organizations own about 55 percent of the land in the United States, and Native American tribes own about 3 percent. State and local governments own another 7 percent. The federal government owns the rest (about 35 percent). Government-owned land encompasses all types of ecosystems, from tundra to desert, and includes land that contains important resources such as minerals and fossil fuels, land that possesses historical or cultural significance, and land that provides critical biological habitat. Most federally owned land is in Alaska and 11 western states (Figure 13.1). Federal land is managed primarily by four agencies, three in the U.S. Department of the Interior—the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the National Park Service (NPS)—and one in the Department of Agriculture—the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) (Table 13.1) (Wiley, 2009). Why is the forest an important ecosystem?
Forests, important ecosystems that provide many goods and services to support human society, occupy less than one-third of Earth's total land area. Timber harvested from forests is used for fuel, construction