36 mining claim That portion of the public mineral lands that a person may claim for mining purposes in accordance with the General Mining Law as amended There are four types of mining claims lode placer millsites and tunnel sites Mohs hardness scale Quantitative units by which the scratch hardness of a mineral is determined The units of hardness are expressed in numbers ranging from 1 talc to 10 diamond mountaintop mining A method of surface min ing pract iced in the Appalachian coal felds of the eastern United States Mountaintop mining allows the mine operator to remove layers of dirt and rock covering a coal seam making the entire deposit economical and safer for extraction Valley flls a critical component of mountaintop mining are carefully constructed to ensure the safe deposit of rock and dirt from the surface mine into adjacent valleys Valley flls are not unique to mining Hun dreds of valley f lls were constructed throughout the country during the building of the Interstate Highway System multiple use The standard for federally managed land A combination of balanced and diverse re source uses that takes into account the longterm needs of future generations for renewable and nonrenewable resources including recreation range timber minerals watershed and wildlife along with natural scenic scientifc and historical values nonmetallic minerals Minerals carbon dia mond coals bitumen asphalt boron sulfur rock salt etc that lack the properties of the metallic minerals nonrenewable resources Resources that are not replaced or regenerated naturally within a reason able period of time such as fossil fuels or minerals open pit A mine or excavation open to the sur face Refers primarily to mines of metal ores dis tinguished from coal surface mines ore Rock that contains important minerals includ ing metals outcrop Coal that appears at or near the surface overburden Layers of earth and rock covering a coal seam or mineral deposit patent A government deed a document that con veys legal title to public lands to the patentee placer deposit An alluvial marine or glacial depos it resulting from the crumbling and erosion of solid rocks and often containing valuable minerals portal Any entrance to a mine preparation plant A facility usually located on a mine site that crushes sizes and washes coal prior to shipment ranks of coal The classifcation of coal by degree of hardness moisture and heat content The major ranks from lowest to highest quality are lignite subbituminous bituminous and anthracite For more information see the Resources chapter reclamation The restoration of land and environ mental values to a mining site Reclamation opera tions are sometimes started where the coal or min eral has already been taken from a mine even as production operations are taking place elsewhere at the site This process commonly includes re contouring or reshaping the land to its approxi mate original appearance restoring topsoil and planting native grasses trees and ground covers Mining reclamation is closely regulated by both state and federal law recoverable reserves The amount of coal that can be recovered from the Demonstrated Reserve Base The recovery factor for underground coal mines is about 60 percent and for surface mines about 8090 percent reserves Known identifed resources from which a usable mineral commodity can be technologically economically and legally extracted at the time of determination resources A broad term for discovered or still undiscovered concentrations of minerals in such form that a usable commodity can be extracted now or in the future G L O SSA R Y