India Resources & Their Utilization Test - 7

Kakki Reservoir is a reservoir, located in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala, India.The lake, which was created when Kakki dam and Anathode dam were built, is on one of the tributaries of Pamba, the Kakki tributary. The dams were built in 1966 as part of the Sabarigiri Hydroelectric project.

Copper is one of those metals that man started using very early. As a matter of fact, copper was the first metal that man discovered in 9000 BCE. Copper has been an essential material to man since prehistoric times. In fact, one of the major 'ages' or stages of human history is named after a copper alloy: bronze. Copper was the first metal used by man in any quantity. The other metals used in pre-historic times were gold, silver, tin, lead, and iron.

The raw materials used to produce pig iron in a blast furnace are iron ore, coke, sinter, and limestone. Iron ores are mainly iron oxides and include magnetite, hematite, limonite, and many other rocks.

India's major mineral resources include Coal (4th largest reserves in the world), Iron ore, Manganese ore (7th largest reserve in the world as in 2013), Mica, Bauxite (5th largest reserve in the world as in 2013), Chromite, Natural gas, Diamonds, Limestone and Thorium.

Aluminium is the base of the modern chemical industry. Aluminium is the most widely used non-ferrous metal. The global production of aluminium in 2016 was 58.8 million metric tons. It exceeded that of any other metal except iron (1,231 million metric tons).

Vishakhapatnam and Goa ports are specialised in the export of iron ore. Marmagao port of Goa is the premier iron ore exporting port of the country. This port accounts for about fifty per cent of India's iron ore export.
Vishakhapatnam port is the deepest land-locked and well-protected port. This port was originally conceived as an outlet for iron ore exports.

The mines of Manganese are located in Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar. In Odisha, the mining impact zones in Sundargarh, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj districts is about 100 sq km (100,000 ha). As many as 192 mining leases of iron and manganese ores are located in these districts and they include forest areas.

Aluminum is the most abundant metal element in the Earth's crust. Bauxite ore is the main source of aluminum and contains the aluminum minerals gibbsite, boehmite, and diaspore. Aluminum is used in the United States in packaging, transportation, and building.

The mica group of sheet silicate (phyllosilicate) minerals includes several closely related materials having nearly perfect basal cleavage. All are monoclinic, with a tendency towards pseudohexagonal crystals, and are similar in chemical composition. The nearly perfect cleavage, which is the most prominent characteristic of mica, is explained by the hexagonal sheet-like arrangement of its atoms.

India produces nearly 60% of the world`s mica. It is the world's largest producer and exporter of mica, accounting for almost 60 percent of the net mica production in the world, which it exports to the United Kingdom, Japan, United States of America etc.