There’s a tale told about a miner who found copper cans in his garbage dump in the early days of mining. Wastewater from copper mining had flowed through his land, he said, and turned steel cans into copper. The story might be apocryphal, but the process is real, and it’s …
A Ukrainian geologist was shopping in his local market recently for pork belly, lard, salmon and grapes when he heard the shouts of a man who seemed drunk, complaining about President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Why didn’t Zelensky ask us before giving away our minerals to the Americans?” he yelled. A woman …
More than a decade ago, Canadian miners prospecting for diamonds in western Greenland saw on the horizon a huge white hump. They called it White Mountain and soon discovered it was a deposit of anorthosite, a salt-and-pepper color mineral used in paints, glass fibers, flame retardants and other industries. The …
A private company is aiming to heave a microwave oven-size spacecraft toward an asteroid later this week, its goal to kick off a future where precious metals are mined around the solar system to create vast fortunes on Earth. “If this works out, this will probably be the biggest business …
It was late at night and Anton Telegin was driving toward a sprawling coal mine near Ukraine’s eastern front line, using darkness to evade Russian attack drones. Mr. Telegin had come to collect wages for himself and some fellow miners, as he did at the end of every month. But …
In a chilly auditorium in Afghanistan, heaps of freshly mined green emeralds glowed under bright table lamps as bearded gemstone dealers inspected them for purity and quality. An auctioneer asked for bids on the first lot, which weighed 256 carats. With that, the Taliban’s weekly gemstone auction was underway. These …