Mining Fact OF THE Week

Aggregates make up 94 percent of an asphalt road surface and 80 percent of a concrete road surface.

It takes 38,000 thousand tons of aggregates to construct just one mile of a four lane interstate highway. The United States produced about 3 billion tons of aggregates and 70% of all counties in the United States have an aggregate operation.

August 12, 2008
Source: National Research Council

There are about 50 pounds of copper in a typical U.S.-built mid-sized automobile: about 40 pounds for electrical and about 10 pounds for nonelectrical components. A typical hybrid car uses at least 76 pounds of copper.

A typical mid-sized U.S.-built automobile uses 2,124 pounds of iron and steel, mainly in the frame and the engine; 435 pounds of cast iron; 1,382 pounds of conventional steel; 263 pounds of high-strength low-alloy steel; and 45 pounds of stainless steel.

Every state and almost every county has a mining operation. Of the 14,666 mining operations in the United States in 2005, more than 11,600 of them were for stone, sand and gravel; 2063 were for coal; and the rest were for metallic or non-metallic minerals.

In 2005, there were 14,666 mining operations in the United States, employing 261,570 people; 31% of those folks mined coal.
Mining is people!