00:00Minerals form in all kinds of different ways, some form deep within the earth at real furnace
00:28like temperatures, they can form at the earth's surface when lava from a volcano crystallizes,
00:34or they can form in real everyday conditions. Minerals are forming now in and on the earth.
00:44There's such a huge range of minerals that have formed in Cornwall and as a result it was a hot
00:50spot for mining which created a huge number of jobs for Cornish people and in turn that meant
00:55that it shaped culture and it shaped identity. There were people who knew the underground
01:02landscape as well as they knew the town that they lived in. We've been doing this here for
01:06thousands of years, it's just a really important factor into who we are and how we live.
01:13Minerals can be really beautiful materials with lovely crystal forms and of course they can have
01:21very beautiful colours as well. But as a scientist I also really like minerals because of the stories
01:28that they can reveal about how the earth has formed and all of the earth's processes and how they work.
01:36Minerals are really the building block of everything, if you don't grow it you have to
01:41mine it and what we mine is minerals. In Cornwall we have elements such as lithium, tin and tungsten
01:48and all of these metals are currently undergoing a resurgence in exploration for them. Most of the
01:53time they're processed into the metals and compounds that we use in various technologies
01:58like wind turbines and solar panels and everything we need for the green transition.
02:02I think the exciting thing about Cornwall is that there is so much history and so much data
02:10associated with that history. We found maps that haven't been seen for hundreds of years
02:15and we can take the data from those maps, put them into modern technology, see them in three
02:20dimensions. It was never possible before. It's a continuum from the past right through to
02:26the future. We need to go out and find the metals and minerals that contain those elements that we
02:31need to have for renewable energy technologies. We probably don't think about them very much
02:37every day and yet everything we do every day relies on minerals. It's also about the people
02:42that went underground and they brought them out. It's about Cornish culture and Cornish
02:46distinctiveness. It's about Cornish landscape and biodiversity and there's just so much there
02:52to learn and be inspired by.
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