- Mining involves the work of exploiting minerals or other geological materials under the ground, including ore bodies, diamonds, limestome, schist, salt rock and potassium carbonate. Any materials which are not created from planting, in laboratories or in factories will be exploited from mines. In a wider meaning, mining includes the exploitation of non-renewable resources (such as oil, natural gases or even water).

- About 40,000 years BC, people knew how to use everything around them, including stone used as a tool for exploiting minerals. After using up good stone on the surface of the Earth, people started digging in order to find the things to meet their demands. Early mines were just low and small holes. Time to time, later miners were forced to dig more deeply for the purpose of searching. One of the minerals people needed at that time was loess used as a pigment in rituals and painting in their caves. The area of loess mines exploited earliest was found in Bomvu Ridge belonging to Swaziland, Africa.