Mineral Basin
Mineral Basin
a closed region of a continuous or nearly continuous distribution of stratified sedimentary minerals, associated with a specific formation of rocks. Mineral basins are indigenous to deposits of coal (such as Kuznetsk, Donets, Podmoskovnyi, and Valenciennes), petroleum and fuel gas (such as Volgo-Ural, Zapadno-Sibir’, and the Gulf of Mexico), nonmetallic minerals (salt basins such as the Artemovsk-Slaviansk, Solikamsk, Irkutsk, and Stassfurt), and ore (Krivorozh’e iron ore, Nikopol’ manganese ore, and so forth).