The everyday importance of minerals in our life

Minerals have become the basic ingredients of our life. We are now surrounded by minerals each and every day. A simple thing is made from many combined minerals. Well, if we have to define mineral in simple terms, it is something that naturally occurs as inorganic product. These have solid substance base having definite chemical composition and an ordered internal structure. If any substance has all these things it can be called as mineral. In Industry, a mineral is defined in many ways; like in mining, anything that is mined is mineral. Minerals manufacturers are mixing and matching different mineral of the highly advanced usage in different industries. 

To make it simple, some of the basic and commonly found and used minerals are lime, bauxite, sulfur, crushed stones, salt, sand and gravel, iron ores, gypsum, phosphate rocks, dimension stone, barite, lead, copper, potash, clays, soda ash, aluminum, chlorite, cobalt, lead, manganese, mica, perlite, quartz, silver, silica, titanium, tungsten, zinc and the list goes on. Each is having its own unique property and these are mixed either with metal or with each other to have a unique product which is useful in many industrial areas. The physical properties of each mineral is different, around 4000 minerals are found on earth and each have its unique set of properties in terms of luster, streak, color, darkness, solubility, cleavage, specific gravity, magnetism, fracture and many more. 

These physical properties are important to identify the minerals and their usage in industry. Like for example, Gold is the best suited for making jewelry as its bright yellow color is attractive to people and can easily be shaped into different styles. Another example can be mineral talc, which after being grounded is perfectly suited as foot powder because it is very soft and slippery and has the ability to absorb odor, oil and moisture.