Mineral resources in all their forms are a gift of nature in the countries where they are found. Almost all countries depend largely on exports of their mineral resources and earn a large part of their foreign exchange from these exports. Pakistan is blessed with significant mineral resources and is emerging as a very promising area for the exploration of mineral deposits. Pakistan has great potential in metallic minerals like copper, gold, silver, platinum, chromites, iron, lead and zinc, a fact confirmed by various regional geological studies carried out in the recent past. In total, around 52 minerals are mined in Pakistan, but mining there is on a relatively small scale. Considerable resources of coal (186 billion tons), copper (6 billion tons), gold (1.656 million tons), silver (618 million tons), lead-zinc (23.72 million tons), manganese (0.597 million tonnes), chromite (2.527 million tonnes), iron ore (1.4 billion tonnes) and precious and semi-precious stones have been identified in different parts of the country. Figure 1 shows a brief mineral summary of the country. Presence of important ...