Glossary

An autoclave is a machine that uses steam under pressure to kill harmful bacteria, viruses, fungi, and spores on items that are placed inside a pressure vessel.

The unwanted minerals that constitute the unwanted minerals of an ore. These are usually substantial fractions of the total mass.

A lithosphere is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust and the lithospheric mantle, the topmost portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of up to thousands of years or more. The crust and upper mantle are distinguished on the basis of chemistry and mineralogy.

Lithosphere from Wikipedia, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License

Strictly speaking, a mineral is a naturally occurring, homogeneous inorganic substance of definite composition and crystal structure. Native elements (e.g. sulfur, gold) and compounds are included. A great many solid materials in nature fit this description. However, some solid materials have variable composition, e.g. pyrrhotite, FeS1-x and pentlandite, (Fe,Ni)9S8 where, respectively, varying fractions of iron and sulfur and nickel and iron occur. These are still considered minerals. Finally coal, which is not exactly an inorganic substance, nor of definite composition, may also be considered a mineral, broadly speaking.

A mineral deposit is a body of natural material that contains specific minerals.

An ore is a mixture of minerals, one or more of which can be economically exploited as a source for one or more materials. These materials might ultimately be produced as metals, alloys, compounds or concentrates. Note that the key is economically viable production. This requires a certain grade of the mineral(s) to be present. Not all mineral deposits are ore bodies, but all ore bodies are mineral deposits. With advances in technology, or increases in price what was only a mineral deposit at one time, might become an ore later.