give an account of minerals found in jharkhand
Chota Nagpur Plateau Chota Nagpur plateau is a store house of minerals like mica, bauxite, copper, limestone, iron ore and coal.[3] The Damodar valley is rich in coal and it is considered as the prime centre of coking coal in the country. Massive coal deposits are found in the central basin spreading over 2,883 square kilometres (1,113 sq mi). The important coalfields in the basin are Jharia, Raniganj, West Bokaro, East Bokaro, Ramgarh, South Karanpura and North Karanpura.[21]
Mali Empire The next great unit of exchange in the Mali Empire was salt. Salt was as valuable, if not more valuable, than gold in sub-Saharan Africa. It was cut into pieces and spent on goods with close to equal buying power throughout the empire.[46] While it was as good as gold in the north, it was even better in the south. The people of the south needed salt for their diet, but it was extremely rare.[citation needed] The northern region on the other hand had no shortage of salt. Every year merchants entered Mali via Oualata with camel loads of salt to sell in Niani. According to Ibn Battuta who visited Mali in the mid-14th century, one camel load of salt sold at Walata for 8–10 mithqals of gold, but in Mali proper it realised 20–30 ducats and sometimes even 40.[46] One particular source of salt in the Mali Empire was salt-mining sites located in Taghaza. Ibn Battuta had written that in Taghaza there were no trees and there is only sand and the salt mines. Nobody lived in the area except the Musafa servants who worked to dig the salts and lived on dates imported from Sijilmasa and the Dar'a valley, camel meat and millet imported from the Sudan. The buildings were constructed from slabs of salt and roofed with camel skins. The salt was dug from the ground and cut into thick slabs, two of which were loaded onto each camel where they would be taken south across the desert to Oualata and sold. The value of the salt was chiefly determined by the transport costs. Ibn Battuta mentions that the value of salt increased fourfold when transported between Oualata and the Malian capital.[47]