Mineral resources.

2.4.1. Britain’s mineral resources were historically important, but today most of these resources are either exhausted or produced in small quantities. Britain currently relies upon imports from larger, cheaper foreign supplies. Before and during the Roman occupation, about 2,000 years ago, Britain was noted for its tin mines, which were concentrated in Cornwall. The tin was mixed with copper to produce bronze, an important material in ancient times used for weapons and jewelry. Today nearly every tin mine in Britain has been exhausted and shut down.

2.4.2. Britain’s small deposits of iron ore were critically important to the Industrial Revolution, particularly because iron ore deposits were located close to rich deposits of coal. When iron ore and coal are heated together, they produce iron alloys, such as wrought iron. When iron ore is heated at high temperatures with coke, a derivative of coal, it produces pig iron, a cheaper, softer iron that is more easily purified into the iron and steel essential for constructing machines and railroads. During the Industrial Revolution towns and cities sprang up close to these resources, and they remain among Britain’s leading urban areas.

2.4.3. Great Britain is rich in coal. There are rich coal basins in Northumberland, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, South Wales, North Wales and near Glasgow. Coal has been worked in Britain for 700 years, and as an industry, coal mining has been in existence for over 300 years, twice as long as in any other European country.

The development of coal mining and metallurgy caused a very troublesome situation in terms of air pollution. It was in Britain that the word “ smog” was used to describe a mixture of smoke and fog. As the world’s first industrialized country, its cities were the first to suffer this atmospheric condition. The situation in London reached its worst point in 1952. At the end of that year particularly bad smog, which lasted for several days, was estimated to have caused between 4000 and 8000 deaths. Laws were passed which forbade the heating of homes with open coal fires in city areas and which stopped much of the pollution from factories.

2.4.4. In the end of the XIX century oil and gas began to play the role of the most important source of power and fuel. Up to the early 1960s, over 99% of Britain’s petroleum requirements were imported, primarily from the Middle Eastern countries. Since then considerable discoveries of crude oil and natural gas have been made in the North Sea, and first oil was brought ashore in 1975. It has changed Britain’s energy position, as the country became self-sufficient in energy. With the growth in offshore oil production Britain became an important oil exporter mostly to the USA and Germany. It’s necessary to mention a number of non-metallic minerals. The major of them are: sandstones and limestones (used in house construction); clay (the manufacture of bricks); chalk (is used in cement industry); common salt and rock salt (form the basic raw materials for a variety of chemicals).

LECTURE 03

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16