Text 2. THE NATURE OF ROCKS

Министерство образования Российской Федерации

Петрозаводский государственный университет

Кольский филиал

Кафедра иностранных языков

АНГЛИЙСКИЙ ЯЗЫК

Сборник текстов для индивидуального чтения

Для студентов I-II курсов очного отделения

Горно-технического факультета

специальностей 090200 Подземная разработка месторождений полезных ископаемых,

Открытые горные работы,

Обогащение полезных ископаемых

Апатиты

Сборник текстов для индивидуального чтения рекомендован к использованию учебно-методической комиссией. Протокол № 7 от 02 февраля 2004 года. Утвержден и рекомендован к печати на заседании кафедры иностранных языков. Протокол № 18 от 02 февраля 2004 года.

Составитель: Романихина В.С., преподаватель кафедры иностранных языков КФ ПетрГУ.

Рецензенты:Соболева Л.А., доцент кафедры иностранных языков КФ ПетрГУ, Щукина А.Н., старший преподаватель кафедры иностранных языков КФ ПетрГУ.

СОДЕРЖАНИЕ

Методические пояснения 5

Part I 7

1. Our Earth 7

2. The Nature of Rocks 9

3. Mineral 12

4. Hardness 13

5. Rock-forming Minerals 13

6. Mineralogy 16

7. Mineral Deposits 18

8. Geology 18

9. Geophysics 19

10. Geochemistry 21

11. Igneous Rocks 22

12. Intrusion 25

13. Sedimentary Rocks 26

14. Metamorphic Rocks 29

15. Rock Cycle 32

16. Vein 34

17. Groundwater 34

18. Erosion 35

19. Weathering 37

20. Ore 37

21. Volcanology - the Study of Volcanoes 38

22. Alexander Karpinsky 40

Part II 41

1. Apatite 41

2. Granite 41

3. Pegmatite 42

4. Clay 42

5. Shale 43

6. Quartz 43

7. Chalcedony 45

8. Sand 46

9. Sandstone 46

10. Limestone 47

11. Marble 47

12. Chalk 48

13. Calcite 48

14. Stalactite and Stalagmite 49

15. Salt 50

16. Halite 51

17. Gypsum 51

18. Selenite 52

19. Alabaster 52

20. Basalt 53

21. Gold 53

22. Petroleum 55

23. A.Y. Fersman 56

Part III 57

1. PJSC “Apatit” 57

2. Geological and Mining Engineering 57

3. Mining 57

4. Mining Operations 58

5. Prospecting, Exploration and Sampling 60

6. Mining Equipment 62

7. Mine Tubs and Cars in Britain 63

8. Conveyers 64

9. Rock Pressure 65

10. Principles of Mining Methods 67

11. Mining Geodesy 70

12. Underground Surveying for Details 72

13. Types of Locomotives Used Underground 73

14. Opencast Workings 73

15. Coal Mining 75

16. Coal Mining Waste 78

17. Clean Coal Technology 79

18. Metal Mining 79

19. Gem Cutting 81

20. Production of Synthetic Fuels 83

21. Mine Safety 86

Принятые сокращения 88

Литература 89

МЕТОДИЧЕСКИЕ ПОЯСНЕНИЯ

Вашему вниманию предлагается сборник специально подобранных текстов для индивидуального чтения, который может сопутствовать нормативному курсу английского языка для студентов I – II курсов очного отделения горно-технического факультета специальностей 090200 Подземная разработка месторождений полезных ископаемых, 090500 Открытые горные работы, 090300 Обогащение полезных ископаемых.

В основу сборника положен принцип профессиональной направленности. В основном тексты данного сборника взяты из оригинальной англо-американской научно-технической литературы и подобраны так, что они знакомят студентов с тематикой их будущей специальности.

Сборник состоит из 3 частей. Первая часть содержит тексты с общей геологической терминологией, освещает первостепенные науки, относящиеся к горно-геологическому профилю, типы горных пород и явления, связанные с ними. Во второй части представлены описания некоторых минералов и минеральных отложений, горных пород, химических элементов и соединений. Третья часть знакомит студентов с отдельными вопросами по методике разведки, способам разработки месторождений, эксплуатации технических средств, мерам безопасности в ходе горных работ и т.д. Часть этих текстов может быть использована для реферирования и аннотирования.

В конце каждого текста представлено количество печатных знаков, а к некоторым из текстов прилагаются пояснения сложной терминологической лексики. Материал сборника рассчитан как на самостоятельную внеаудиторную работу студентов, так и на работу в аудитории под руководством преподавателя.

Развитие умения самостоятельно читать литературу на иностранном языке является важнейшей составной частью обучения иностранному языку. Чтение на иностранном языке имеет практическое значение, оно не только способствует углублению знаний по грамматике и лексике языка, но и расширяет общий кругозор.

Следующие рекомендации помогут Вам в дальнейшем развитии и усовершенствовании навыков самостоятельного чтения литературы на иностранном языке:

ü Читайте систематически и внимательно.

ü Поставьте перед собой задачу уловить общий смысл прочитанного.

ü Старайтесь понять все предложение, а не отдельное слово; целый абзац, а не отдельное предложение. Не оставляйте непонятым ни одного абзаца. Повторное чтение помогает выяснить содержание ранее не понятого текста.

ü Постарайтесь раскрыть значение незнакомого слова по контексту.

ü Не делайте дословный перевод текста, так как одной из целей индивидуального чтения является понимание прочитанного на иностранном языке без помощи родного языка в качестве посредника.

ü Выписывайте из каждого прочитанного рассказа наиболее часто встречающиеся слова и выражения в специальную тетрадь.

ü Не останавливайтесь перед трудностями, продолжайте систематически и тщательно работать над текстами. Понимание прочитанного улучшается с накоплением лексического запаса. Чтение становится доступным и принесет Вам много полезного и приятного.

ü Помните также, что навык чтения вырабатывается не тогда, когда прочитывают огромное количество страниц без достаточного понимания, а тогда, когда читают много и действительно полностью понимают прочитанное.

PART I

Text 1. OUR EARTH

The earth is a huge, slightly lopsided ball of rock, so enormous that we can scarcely imagine how heavy it is; it weighs about 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. Its di­ameter through the equator is 7,926,68 miles, but from pole to pole the diameter is 7,899,98 miles, or 26,7 miles less. In spite of this very small flattening, and an even smaller bulge in the southern hemisphere, the earth is still nearly a perfect sphere.

When geologists talk of the earth as a ball of rock, they do not mean it is solidly made up of the stones you see on a rocky beach. Scientists actually know very little about the rocks deep inside the earth, and even the definition of a rock itself may seem vague and complicated. It is easy to define chemical elements and the minerals they form, but it is not easy to define the rocks of which the earth is made.

All life is, as we know, spread out in a thin layer on, or close to the surface of the rocky earth. Some plants and animals make their homes two or three miles above the sea level. Others can survive an equal depth below the surface of the sea. But it is within this thin six-mile layer, that over 99,99 per cent of all plants and animals live, grow, and die.

The story of where rocks came from is closely related to
the origin of the earth, and this mystery is yet to be un­raveled. The best guess is that the earth and the entire solar system have been in existence for a little over four billion years.

Astronomers get a fairly good idea of the chemical com­position of the universe by studying the light from the stars and the sun. But as soon as scientists have to deal with the smaller, colder bodies like the planets and satellites, information is more difficult to obtain. Our direct knowledge of rocks is limited very much to the crust of our earth. The deepest hole that man has ever been able to dig in it is an oil well that goes more than 9 km deep. This is only about five miles down, a mere pinprick into the crust.

Scientists can measure the age of rocks that contain uran­ium quite accurately. Uranium in a rock slowly but stead­ily decays into one kind of lead. Thus, careful measure­ments to find the relative weight of uranium and lead in the rock can be used to measure the rock’s age. When about one quarter of the uranium has changed to lead, two billion years have passed. This is almost the age of the oldest known rocks, found in the mountains of India.

In recent years, astronomers and geologists have shown that the story of the origin of the world is very complicated. Yet everyone agrees that the earth, the planets and the sun are made of matter. Therefore, comprehension what is meant by matter is the first step in understanding rocks.

Matter is anything which occupies space, has weight and can be detected by some means or another. Each bit of matter on the earth or in the universe attracts all other bits of matter. This ever present attraction is known as gravity or gravitation.

All matter is made of 105 chemical elements listed in the Mendeleyev’s Periodic Table. Over 99 per cent of the material in the earth is made of about 30 lightest elements. All our rocks are also made of these 30 light elements. If the sun and the other stars are included, the two lightest elements - hydrogen and helium - make up nearly all of the matter in the universe.

On the hot surface of the sun, most atoms (the smallest particles of an element) are independent of each other. On the earth atoms usually combine to form molecules. Some­times two or more atoms of the same kind will join together. Atoms of hydrogen and oxygen are usually joined in pairs. More often, two or more different elements unite, forming a molecule made of several kinds of atoms.

The hundred or more kinds of atoms can combine in mil­lions of different ways. In each case a different molecule is formed. Living things contain large, complex molecules. Nearly all of them include atoms of carbon joined with atoms of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus. In the crust of the earth 30 or so lightest elements have joined together to make thousands upon thousands of different molecules. These molecules form chemicals which occur nat­urally in the crust of the earth. When these natural chemi­cals have a definite crystal structure and are not formed in or by living things, they are then called minerals.

Thousands of kinds of minerals are known, but only a hundred or so are common. These common kinds are made mainly of eight elements: oxygen, silicon, aluminium, iron, calcium, sodium, potassium and magnesium. These eight elements, joined together in various ways, make up nearly 99 per cent of the crust or outer part of the earth.

One important group of minerals in the earth’s crust are the oxides. Here, the molecule is made of one or more atoms of oxygen combined with one or more other elements. Best known and most important of all the oxides is silicon dioxide, the chemical name for quartz or sand. Quartz is the most widespread mineral that is found in the earth’s crust.

Another common group of minerals are the silicates. Here silicon and oxygen are once again combined. But in addition, one or more metals such as aluminium, calcium, sodium or potassium are part of the molecule. Silicates are the most important group of rock-forming minerals. Wheth­er in the form of silicon dioxide or in the form of silicates, the two elements - silicon and oxygen - together make up 83 per cent of the crust of the earth. Six metals make up 16 per cent; other elements add up to one per cent. Iron, the most important metal, is in the less-than-one per cent group; so are all the precious metals. All of these together are the materials comprising the earth’s crust.

(4700)

NOTES:

· flattening - выполаживание, более пологий уклон слоев;

· potassium - калий.

Text 2. THE NATURE OF ROCKS

To the geologist, rock is the natural, solid material that makes up the earth. The first word, natural, immediately eliminates man-made materials like cement, glass, brick, and steel, even though these all come from the crust of the earth.

The second word, solid, rules out the air and other gases, the oceans, rivers, lakes, and other liquids. However, solids can be changed to liquids and gases by being heated; liquids and gases can be changed into solid by being cooled. The definition of a rock means solid at temperatures which normally occur in the earth’s crust. Even this does not cov­er everything, because one of the most common chemical compounds on the surface of the earth may or may not be a rock, depending on its temperature. This chemical com­pound is water — H2O. Water makes up nearly three fourths of the surface of the earth. Most of it is in the form of a liquid, and while liquid water affects the rocks of the earth in many ways, water is not a rock. However, in the arctic and antarctic regions, and in the temperate regions during winter, millions upon millions of tons of water are a hard, frozen solid. In the Antarctic, ice occurs in layers nearly two miles thick. Ice is, therefore, a rock, and geologists study the great ice fields just as they study other rock for­mations.

In speaking of rocks, geologists use the word solid in its technical sense. A solid is the matter that is not a liquid or gas. What the geologists would sometimes call solid rockmight seem strange to you. The wet sands on the beach and the shifting sands in the desert are a solid and a rock. This is also true of the layers of mud and muck in the swamps, or the ash and cinders from volcanoes. They are rock also.

The third word, material, brings no additional problems to the definition of a rock. But it may be well to point out that the materials in the crust of the earth may have two distinct origins: organic and inorganic. Most of the material in the crust of the earth is inorganic. This means that it is in no way related to life or living things. Lava pouring from a volcano makes an excellent example of inorganic material. So do the great masses of granite pushed miles into the air.

While most of the rocks are made of materials which are not or ever have been alive, some rocks are organic — made up by living things. Coal and oil deposits, for example, are the remains of ancient plants. Oil, you might say, is a liq­uid and therefore is not a rock. However, there are no great underground lakes of oil as some people imagine. The oil is usually soaked up in the pores of sand and other rocks. Under special conditions it drains into wells from where it is pumped to the surface. Millions of gallons of oil are locked up in rocks, especially in the oil shales. Asphalt is another organic rock.

Less well-known are the rocks which have been formed from the remains of sea animals. Shells cemented together form several kinds of limestone. Sometimes these are the shells of microscopic animals, sometimes they are much larger shells.

Coral is another kind of rock made by living things. Coral animals take lime from the sea water and build it into reefs in which millions upon millions of coral animals live. Islands of coral dot the South Pacific. A few microscopic plants and sponges have silica skeletons. Under certain con­ditions these, too, form organic rocks.

One final explanation, and the definition of rocks is about as complete as it can be. The definition implies that rocks are large masses of natural, solid material, big enough to form a distinct part of the earth’s crust.

Diamonds are not rocks, even though they are found in the crust of the earth. But if a whole mountain of diamonds was discovered, then it would be correct to call diamonds a rock. There are places where one can see mountains of marble, quartz granite or limestone. You can find large beds of coal, shale or lava. These are rocks. There are the many miles of rich soil, more miles of sand in the desert and on the shores. They all make up major parts of the earth’s crust, so they are called rocks.

You may have noticed that the definition of a rock does not say anything about minerals. This is odd, for we com­monly think of rocks and minerals as going hand in hand. Most often they do. However, all minerals are inorganic. They are chemical compounds and therefore have a defi­nite chemical composition. Mixtures of minerals often do form enough of the earth’s crust to be considered rocks. Granite, made mainly of three minerals — mica, feldspar and quartz, is undoubtedly a rock.

There are also times when a single mineral may form a rock. Quartz is a common mineral. Some forms of sand­stone are made up of 99 per cent pure quartz. In this and other cases the rock and the mineral are made of the same chemical substances. This may also happen in the case of the mineral, calcite, which forms a kind of pure marble. Here again the rock and the mineral are the same. Gypsum is another rock made of a single mineral. The mineral kaolin makes fine clay and forms still another kind of rock.

However, rocks may be of materials which are not min­erals at all. Volcanic glass or obsidian is not a mineral but it frequently forms rocks. Coal, peat and asphalt are not minerals but they are rocks.

In spite of the difficulty in defining rocks, most rocks are easily recognized when you see them, and most are made of minerals or mineral-like substances. They are usually solid, hard, and heavy, compared to the other materials you see and use daily.

The study of rocks is petrology. It is a difficult science, for most rocks are harder to identify than birds, flowers or trees. But the study of rocks is important, for rocks and minerals yield the materials that make modern civilization possible. The rock which forms soil is the basis for life on land. Dissolved minerals taken from the rocks by running water make the sea salty and make ocean life possible to exist.

The identification of rocks is easy when the rocks are made of minerals and when the minerals are large enough to be identified. When the rock is fine-grained and when the minerals all look alike, as they do in some of the dark rocks, it takes skill to identify them. The geologist will of­ten cut a piece of rock with a diamond saw and polish one surface until it is perfectly smooth. He then cements the smooth surface to a glass slide, and polishes the rest of the rock until it is paper thin. This thin layer of rock is examined under a microscope, using polaroid light. As the light pas­ses through the minerals in the rock, it is altered, producing beautiful colors. These colors depend on the kind of miner­als and on the angle at which the crystals have been cut. Such patterns aid much in the process of identification.

The identification of rocks involves much more prop­erties. The texture, color, hardness and relative weight of the rock can also be used as clues. The geologist also looks for the geologic structures in which the rock occurs. Certain rocks are found only in volcanoes, others in caves. Still others are more likely to be found in valleys than on high ridges.

(5880)

NOTES:

· shifting sands - барханы;

· to soak - пропитывать(ся);

· feldspar - полевой шпат;

· ridge - гребень горы, гряда гор, горный кряж.

Text 3. MINERAL

Mineral, in general, is any naturally occurring chemical element or compound, but in mineralogy and geology, chemical elements and compounds that have been formed through inorganic processes. Petroleum and coal, which are formed by the decomposition of organic matter, are not minerals in the strict sense. More than 3000 mineral species are known, most of which are characterized by definite chemical composition, crystalline structure, and physical properties. They are classified primarily by chemical composition, crystal class, hardness, and appearance (color, luster, and opacity). Mineral species are, as a rule, limited to solid substances, the only liquids being metallic mercury and water. All the rocks forming the earth’s crust consist of minerals. Metalliferous minerals of economic value, which are mined for their metals, are known as ores.

(740)

NOTES:

· compound - состав, соединение, трансмиссия;

· luster - блеск;

· opacity - непрозрачность.

Text 4. HARDNESS

Hardnessis an ability of a solid substance to resist surface deformation or abrasion. Various interpretations, depending on the usage, are applied to the term. In mineralogy, hardness is defined as the resistance of the smooth surface of a mineral to scratching. A soft surface is scratched more easily than a hard surface; thus a hard mineral, such as diamond, will scratch a soft mineral, such as graphite, and the hard mineral will not be scratched by the soft. The relative hardness of minerals is determined according to the Mohs scale of hardness. In the Mohs scale, named for the German mineralogist Friedrich Mohs who devised it, ten common minerals are arranged in order of increasing hardness and are assigned numbers: 1) talc; 2) gypsum; 3) calcite; 4) fluorite; 5) apatite; 6) orthoclase (feldspar); 7) quartz; 8) topaz; 9) corundum; and 10) diamond. The hardness of a mineral specimen is obtained by determining which mineral in the Mohs scale will scratch the specimen. Thus, galena, which has a hardness of 2.5, can scratch gypsum and can be scratched by calcite. The hardness of a mineral largely determines its durability.

In metallurgy and engineering, hardness is determined by impressing a small ball or cone of a hard material on the surface to be tested and measuring the size of the indentation. Hard metals are indented less than soft metals. This test to determine the hardness of metal surfaces is known as the Brinell test, named after the Swedish engineer Johann Brinell, who invented the Brinell machine for measuring the hardness of metals and alloys.

Hardness is related to the strength, durability, and toughness of solid substances, and in common usage the term is often extended to include those properties.

(1460)

NOTES:

* feldspar - полевой шпат;

* galena - галенит, свинцовый блеск;

* durability - прочность.