Mining is the extraction of precious minerals or other geological materials from the earth. Usually from mineral deposits, seams, veins, seams, reefs or placer deposits. These deposits form a mineralized package of interest to the miner. Minerals recovered from mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, gypsum, dimension stones, rock salt, potash, gravel, and clay. Mining is necessary to obtain any material that cannot be grown or created artificially in a laboratory or factory. Mining in a broader sense includes the extraction of any non-renewable resource such as oil, natural gas and water. Stone and metal mining has been a human occupation since prehistoric times. Modern mining processes involve prospecting for ore, analyzing a mine's potential profit, extracting the desired materials, and ultimately reclaiming the land after the mine closes. Mining operations almost always create a negative environmental impact, both during mining and after the mine closes. This is why most nations in the world have passed regulations to reduce its impact. Since the beginning of civilization, people have used stone, ceramics, and later metals found near the Earth's surface. These were used to make tools and weapons, high quality flint found in northern France, southern England and Poland was used to make flint tools. Flint mines have been found in chalky areas where the stone veins were followed underground by pits and tunnels. Other hard mined rocks are harvested for axes, including greenstone. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The oldest known mine in the archaeological record is Lion's Cave, Swaziland, which carbon dating shows to be about 43,000 years old. At this site, Paleolithic humans mined hematite to produce ocher, the red pigment. Mines of a similar age in Hungary are believed to be sites where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons and tools. There are countless different ways to mine, including surface mining, which is done by removing surface vegetation, dirt, and rock layers to reach buried ore deposits. Surface mining techniques include open pit mining, which is the recovery of materials from an open pit in the ground, quarry mining, identical to open pit mining except it refers to sand, stone and clay, strip mining, which involves stripping surface layers to reveal underlying mineral deposits, and mountaintop removal, usually to help with coal mining, which involves removing the top of a mountain to reach the ore deposits deep in the mountain. Finally, landfill mining involves sites where landfills are excavated and processed. Landfill mining has been envisioned as a solution to address long-term methane emissions and local pollution. Another type of mining is underground mining, which is the method of digging tunnels or shafts into the earth to reach buried mineral deposits. Useful ore or waste rock is taken out through tunnels and shafts. Underground mining can be classified by the type of access shafts used, the mining method, or the technique used to reach the mineral deposit..