India: minerals, their dependence on relief features

Mineral resources are one of the main components of the economic development of the state. In the presence of various minerals, the country will not depend on external partners. At the same time, emphasis will be placed on the development of areas that are rich in territory. How it is done in India.

Features of the tectonic structure

In its tectonic structure, India is divided into three parts. The main territory of the country is on the surface of the Hindustan plate. This part of the state is the most stable. In the northeast of modern India, the highest mountain massif of the planet - the Himalayas, which was formed as a result of a collision between two plates - the Hindustani and the Eurasian, begins, and then merges into one continent. This same collision contributed to the formation of the deflection of the earth's crust, which later filled with alluvium and gave rise to the third part - the Indo-Gangetic plain. Features of the relief of India and minerals are tightly connected. The modern embodiment of the ancient plate - the plateau Dean, which occupies almost the entire central and southern part of the country. It is rich in deposits of various ore minerals, diamonds and other precious stones, as well as deposits containing coal and hydrocarbons.

Inventory summary

One can distinguish a certain feature of the state of India. Minerals containing ore: iron, copper, manganese, tungsten, as well as bauxites, chromites and gold, are located in the east and northeast of the country. In places where the plateau meets the Dean with mountain ranges. Here, as well as on the more eastern plateau of Chota Nagpur, the largest coalfields are concentrated. The raw materials of these deposits are not of high quality - mostly they are energy coals and they are used as much as possible in the energy sector. South India is rich in deposits of bauxite, gold, chromite. The deposits of iron ore are located in the central part of the country. In contrast to coal mining, which is directed mainly at the domestic market, the extraction of ore minerals is export oriented. The coastal strip of the Indian coast has reserves of monazite sand, which contains thorium and uranium ores. And the question of what minerals rich India is rich in can be answered - by all. And the presence of large deposits of precious metals - gold and silver - has allowed India, literally, to become the main source of jewelry products in the world.

Ore Minerals

Virtually deprived of ore mineral resources are the western lowlands of the country and the mountainous northern lands of the state of India. The relief and minerals in this country are interconnected. Therefore, almost all the ore deposits are associated with the Dekan plateau. Its northeast is rich in huge deposits of various resources - iron, chrome and manganese are mined here. The volume of iron ore reserves is estimated at twelve billion tons. And ore is mined on such a scale that local metallurgy does not have time to process it.

Therefore, most of the extracted ore is exported. Indian manganese ores and chromites are famous for the high content of a useful substance. And the polymetallic ores of the country are rich in zinc, lead and copper. Separately it is necessary to allocate special fossils - monazite sands. They are found on many world coasts, but India has the greatest accumulation. Minerals of this type have a large constituent of radioactive ores - thorium and uranium. The country benefited from the availability of this component on its territory, which allowed it to become a nuclear power. In addition to radioactive substances, monazite sands contain a sufficient amount of titanium and zirconium.

Nonmetallic minerals

The main fossil of this type is coal, which accounts for ninety-seven percent of Indian coal reserves. Most of the deposits are in the east and northeast of the Deccan plateau and the Chokhta Nagpur plateau. The explored reserves of coal are the seventh in the world. But the extraction of this fossil is seven percent of the world's value - the highest figure among the rest of the world.

Coal is mainly used in the form of fuel for thermal power plants. Only a small amount of it is involved in metallurgy. The extraction of brown coal in the country is negligible. This fossil is used only as fuel. The northeastern lands are rich in oil reserves. Until the middle of the last century, these were the only oil deposits that India knew. Minerals of this type from that period began to be reconnoitered throughout the country and large deposits were found in the west of the country and on the shelves of the Arabian Sea. More than forty million tons of oil are produced annually in the country, but this is not enough for the rapidly developing Indian industry, so a significant part of the country's oil has to be imported.

Jewelery Leader

What else is India famous for? Minerals that are of significant importance in the life of the country were listed above. Almost all - only precious metals and precious stones were not mentioned.

For several millennia, all diamonds of the world were mined in India near Golconda, in the eastern part of the Deccan plateau. By the eighteenth century, it turned out that these deposits are almost empty. At the same time, large deposits were discovered in Africa, Canada, Siberia, and Indian diamonds began to be forgotten. Relatively small by world standards, diamond mining and the presence of platinum and gold components in the ore deposits of the east and northeast of the country made India the world leader in jewelry business.