Chotanagpur has the most important mineral belts of India accounting for 40 to about 100 percent of the national production of various minerals. In certain minerals it holds a key position: it produces nearly 100% of India's Copper and Apatite, 95% of kyanite, more than 50% of coal, mica, bauxite and China Clay and about 40% of Iron-ore. Chotanagpur Plateau contains 80% of India's known deposit of coal and nearly 100% of coking coal also.

The above mentioned important minerals occur in well defined belts. The occurence of coal coincides with the Gondwana rocks of the Damodar Valley. The principal coalfields extend in East-West direction conforming approximately to the alignment of the Auranga and Damodar rivers from the Hutar fields in the west to Jharia fields in the east. There are other fields, off this main strike, such as the Daltonganj and the Girdih fields. Most of these fields contain good quality bituminous coal suitable for coke. The estimated and inferred reserves total 45,841 million tons or approximately 38% of the total coal reserves of the country.

Iron-ore is associated with the Iron Ore Series of the Dharwars in the Kolhan area of Singhbhum district. It crops out in two narrow horse-shoe like parallel ridges, which have open sides in Singhbhum. The ridge forming the Western side of the horse-shoe is known as the Iron Ore Range.

In the earliest times the only minerals which were used by men were rocks, such as flints, from which tools and weapons were fashioned during the Stone Age. However, men soon learnt the art of smelting metals and this allowed them to make use of first Bronze(the Bronze Age) and later Iron(the Iron Age) for their tools. The metals which were first used were those which were most abundant in the area where the knowledge developed, e.g. tin copper and iron.

Our present material civilization has been brought about, to a large extent, by the knowledge and application of metals and minerals, for they provide the basis of machinery on which modern manufacturing industry depends. Most vital have been developments in the science of metallurgy, and especially the ability to make Steel from Iron.

Classes of Minerals: For general and commercial purpose the wide variety of minerals exploited by Man is grouped into a number of classes. These are as follows: