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Mining companies make money from the rocks and minerals that they dig up.  This means that the mining companies will only dig up rocks and minerals that they can make money from.  There are a lot of things that cost money in mining.  Some of these are:  pay for the miners and other people who work at the mine, buying or renting machinery, electricity, and insurance.  The mine owners figure out:

	How long it will take to get the rocks, minerals, or gemstones out of the ground because every day costs them money.
	How much of the rock, mineral, or gemstone is actually going to be found because it might not bring in enough money to cover the costs.
	How much money people are paying for the rock, mineral, or gemstone.
	How much everything will cost subtracted from what it can be sold for.

     Mining is a business.  Mining companies won't mine for minerals, gemstones, or rocks if they won't make a profit from it.  For example, when we visited the coal mine, we were told that there is lots of coal left in the mine.  We wondered why it closed down if there was still coal left in it.  The tour guide told us that it cost a huge amount of money to pump the water out of the mine each day AND they started to have problems getting rid of the water.  New environmental laws stopped them from pumping the mine water into a nearby river because the water had toxic chemicals in it.  So, even though there was more coal that could have been mined, it would have cost more money to get it out than they would have made when they sold it.
     When we began to study mining, we thought there was one kind.  We thought that miners dug a hole in the ground and just kept making it deeper.  That is not the way it is at all.  There are two kinds of mining:  surface mining and underground mining.  Mining companies decide which one to use when they figure out where the mineral is.  This means that if the mineral is only a few feet underground, they will use surface mining.  If it is deep inside the Earth, they will use underground mining.  The cheapest and safest kind of mining is surface mining.  Underground mining costs more because:

	If it takes longer to get the minerals out, the miners will work longer hours.  This means that mine owners will have to pay more money to the miners.
	There are more equipment costs because they are mining underground but need equipment on the surface to process it.
	There are costs like pumping, air ventilation, and electricity that are needed underground.  Surface mining doesn't need those things.

Choices:

	Visit our SURFACE MINING page.
	Visit our UNDERGROUND MINING page.
	Visit our MINING MACHINERY page.
	Visit our Mining and the Environment page.

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Citations:

"Mining."  Raintree Illustrated Science Encyclopedia.  1991 ed.

"Mining."  World Book Encyclopedia.  2000 ed.

"Mining."  21 Nov 2005.  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining>.

“Underground Mining: types of underground coal mines.”  28 Oct. 2005.  <http://www.umwa.org/mining/
ugtype.shtml.