Sand and Gravel – The New Klondike?

The Klondike symbolized one of mankind's driving forces - the desire to lay one's hands on a scarce resource, gold, in that case - and in doing so to make some money along the way. It can be argued that construction aggregates - a once lowly and ignored sector of the natural resource industries - have become the desired targets of their own "Klondike." This began in the 1970s and accelerated to a frantic pace in the 1980s. The scope of industrial minerals is very wide. It ranges from high value minerals such as talc, bentonite and kaolinite to the truly humble minerals of sands and gravels, limestones and granites. Their major end uses are in construction aggregates. A rich variety of different mineral types all make good construction aggregates. However, those successfully used have two fundamentals in common: • Their technical characteristics are appropriate for the requirements of their end use. • They are located within an economic distance from the market. The North American market This is the largest construction ag¬gregate market in the world. Consumption in 1990 reached 2.2 Gt/a(2.5 billion stpy). This rate of consumption has grown steadily over the past decades. In the United States, from 1963 to 1989, it averaged a 1.6% compound growth rate. Within this long-term trend, there are business cycles, because aggregate demand is closely linked to economic strength or weakness. The North American market also displays the greatest per capita demand for aggregates when compared to the major industrial economies (Table 1).