Can you imagine your life without metals? Much of everyday life relies on metals, such as those used in mobile phones, other electronic items, cars, tools, etc. Metals revolutionized man's technological progress, so it is perhaps no wonder that long periods in human history have been named after various metals and alloys.
Gold is a valuable metal, that has fascinated people since the Stone age. Photo: Cecilie Bjerke, NGU

Metallic minerals are minerals that contain metals. Metals are defined as chemical elements that can easily release electrons (to form  positive ions), and thus forming metallic bonds. Simply, metals are those minerals that are shiny, malleable, fusible and good electrical conductors.


Ore is a word commonly used to describe deposits of metallic minerals. However, for a mineral deposit to be considered an ore deposit, it must be an economically viable source of the metal; that is, the deposit must contain  sufficiently high  concentration of one or more metals to allow their extraction with a profit.

Whether or not an ore deposit is economically exploitable depends upon a number of  actors. NGU's ore database include mineral deposits that  may not, at present economically viaable because their grade is too low, the deposit is too small, market prices are low, or because extraction of the contained metal(s) is technologically challenging and expensive.

Main Categories

Metallic ores are most commonly found in the form of oxides (chemical bond to oxygen) or sulphides (chemical bond to sulphur and oxygen), and can be divided  into the following groups:

  • Precious metals (gold, silver, and platinum group metals).
  • Iron, titanium and iron alloy metals (iron, manganese, titanium, chromium, nickel, cobalt, vanadium, molybdenum and tungsten).
  • Base metals (copper, zinc, lead, arsenic, antimony, bismuth and tin)
  • Special metals\incompatible elements (niobium, tantalum, beryllium, lithium,  scandium  and rare earth elements)
  • Energy metals (uranium and thorium)
  • Other metals (Cs, Ga, Ge, Hf, In, Cd, Hg, Re, Rb, Se, Si, Sr, S, Te, Tl, Zr,Mg and metallic elements used for non-metallic products: Ba, K, Ca, Na, Rb)

Norway has a long mining history,  including production of  concentrates of iron, silver, copper, cobalt, nickel, lead, zinc, titanium, chromium, molybdenum, tungsten, niobium, and gold. Up until the 1980s, metals were the  most important type of mineral resource for the Norwegian mining industry.

Gullpriser 1975-nå fra Salgsenheter for gull måles i troy ounce/unse, forkortet t oz eller oz. 1 oz tilsvarer ca 31 gram. Klikk på bildet for å få oppdatert graf.
Gold prices from 1975 till today, from Gold production is measured troy ounces/ 1 t oz  is about 31.01 g. Click on the pictured to get an updated graph..