Mineral Distribution of Jammu and Kashmir

The mineral and power resources are the backbone of industrial and technological development of a country or region. Moreover, transportation and accessibility, costs, and supply and demand are the major determinants of industrial development. It is often said that the economic prosperity, industrial development, technological advancement and overall social well-being of a region/country are largely dependent on minerals, power and human resources. The mineral and power resources are however, high unevenly distributed and in many cases they are not easily accessible. They are mostly exhaustible. However, large the deposits of a given mineral, the continuous mining will exhaust the ores. Introduction-A natural inorganic substance possessing a definite chemical composition and almost always in a crystalline form is called mineral. Mineral is formed by the inorganic processes of nature. This definition includes ice as a mineral but excludes coal, natural oil and gas. The only allowable exception to the rule that a mineral must be solid is native mercury (quicksilver) which is a liquid. The state of Jammu and Kashmir is well endowed with forest, and water resources. It is however, deficient in coal, petroleum, natural gas, iron-ore, manganese, thorium, uranium, aluminium, mica, sillimanite, phosphates, dolomite, mercury, silver, etc. Some of the important minerals found in the state are copper, lead, zinc, bauxite, chromium, gold, arsenic, kaolinite, bios-pore, ochre, coal, lignite, slate, marble, sapphire, rubellite, quartz and serpentine. A brief account of the spatial distribution of minerals in the state has been given in the present article