Rock is finite. There are very few processes Earth still carries out that increases land mass. Volcanoes add some land to Earth's surface, but, in comparison to the land lost it is small.
Mass is not the same as rock. Rock is mass, but, not all mass is rock. Mining takes on an interesting capacity when Earth is thought about as a planet and not simply a natural resource gold mine. Earth is not an ATM for the mining industry.
Before introducing the concept of mining as a loss of land, one has to think of Earth as a whole sphere and not simply segments.
According to some calculations, (click here) the Earth is losing 50,000 tonnes of mass every single year, even though an extra 40,000 tonnes of space dust converge onto the Earth’s gravity well, it’s still losing weight.
Chris Smith, a microbiologist, and Dave Ansel, a Cambridge University physicist provided the answer in BBC Radio 4’s More or Less program. The 40,000 tonnes of mass that accumulates comes from space dust, remnants of the formation of the solar system.
When people build structures on Earth, it doesn’t add any mass since they are using baryonic matter that’s already present on the planet. It just changes shape. Launched satellites and rockets that end up in orbit will eventually fall towards Earth’s gravity well....
...The biggest mass loss comes from escaped hydrogen and helium, which escape with 95,000 tonnes of mass and 1,600 tonnes respectively....
When people build structures on Earth, it doesn’t add any mass since they are using baryonic matter that’s already present on the planet. It just changes shape. Launched satellites and rockets that end up in orbit will eventually fall towards Earth’s gravity well....
...The biggest mass loss comes from escaped hydrogen and helium, which escape with 95,000 tonnes of mass and 1,600 tonnes respectively....
