# Have any raw materials gone "extinct"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 4, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865 "2009-09-04T14:47:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![strqwert44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@strqwert44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/strqwert44)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/1 "2009-09-04T14:47:55Z")
Lots of plants and animals have gone extinct but I was wondering if there has been any raw material (element, mineral, fuel, etc) that has disappeared (planet-wide) due to complate extraction by humans? All I can think of is possibly guano. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/2 "2009-09-04T15:11:36Z")
> [@strqwert44](#): > > All I can think of is possibly guano. Birds stopped pooping? That can’t be good. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/3 "2009-09-04T15:37:24Z")
> [@strqwert44](#): > > Lots of plants and animals have gone extinct but I was wondering if there has been any raw material (element, mineral, fuel, etc) that has disappeared (planet-wide) due to complate extraction by humans? > > All I can think of is possibly guano. Given the fact that guano is a renewable resource, it doesn’t qualify. Although most has been extracted from deposits on the best guano islands, more is always being produced. ---
**Author:** ![Nunavut\_Boy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@Nunavut\_Boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunavut_Boy)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/4 "2009-09-04T15:48:34Z")
I used to have an organic chemistry professor who was really passionate about his subject. He used to say that his favorite part was after some synthesis of a new compound. “I have the world’s supply of (compound X) in my hand! I can flush it down the toilet if I want to!” I guess my point is that nowadays many complex organic molecules can be synthesized, given enough resources. Simple things like elements and minerals do not become exhausted. You can react them and make them into another compound, but you can also find a reaction or series of reactions to bring them back to their original state. The world’s supply of elements is essentially static (ignoring the extra bits we pick up from outer space). ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/5 "2009-09-04T16:00:16Z")
It’s not through exhaustion by humans, but most of the transuranic elements would have existed at some point on Earth shortly after its formation, but would have decayed away because of their short half lives. We’ve since made more (for instance, plutonium), but they’ll eventually decay away as well. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/6 "2009-09-04T16:05:05Z")
Well, sure, with enough time and resources, we could create a synthetic/replacement anything. But there are certainly examples of raw materials that were formerly widely-used but are now prohibitively expensive due to rarity. One possible example is very wide wooden boards. Since most lumber now comes from smaller commercially-grown trees rather than huge old-growth trees, there’s not much very wide lumber available. It’s not a huge shift in techniques to use narrower planks of course, but to get an idea of the amount of demand for wide boards (mostly from rehabbing old buildings in New England), it’s profitable to find tree trunks that sank during timber drives 150 years ago, pull them out of the water, and cut them into wide planks. I can think of another couple examples, but think they’ve probably been replaced by superior, refined, materials: for instance, urine was traditionally used for a lot of industrial processes, and is hard to get nowadays, but not much demand due to better alternatives. ---
**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/7 "2009-09-04T16:05:52Z")
Helium, while not extinct, is definitely [on the “endangered” list.](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.08/helium.html) Ironic, considering that it’s the second most abundant element in the universe as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/8 "2009-09-04T16:06:56Z")
For elements, we can’t run out, because there are always new sources of the element. We just have to work harder and harder to extract it from lower and lower grade sources. So you probably won’t find large gold nuggets sitting around in your backyard. But there is plenty of gold in the earth’s crust, we just have to ask whether it is worthwhile economically to extract it. And that gold doesn’t disappear, it gets made into gold artifacts, and that gold can be recycled for new purposes indefinitely. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/9 "2009-09-04T17:01:56Z")
I think all the really good natural pencil graphite is gone, so we have to make it. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/10 "2009-09-04T17:40:32Z")
This famous bet re: resource depletion is worth reading about: [Simon-Ehrlich wager - AbsoluteAstronomy.com](http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Simon-Ehrlich_wager) ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/11 "2009-09-04T17:54:18Z")
I recall reading about some type of marble or granite that was of particularly high quality that was completely quarried and not available anymore. I can’t seem to find any info on it though. I suppose not technically extinct because you could scavenge it from existing buildings, but raw blocks were not available. ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/12 "2009-09-04T17:55:25Z")
My first thought was that some animal-based raw materials have essentially gone extinct due to either endangered status of the animal, or replacement by better synthetic materials. Some of these materials formerly had thriving open markets, whereas now those markets have either dried up, or has gone underground. [ul][li]Ambergris - formerly a valuable commodity, now probably impossible to find on any market[_]Whalebone (a.k.a. baleen) - formerly used for buggy whips and stiffeners for clothing, now replaced by plastic [_]Ivory - endangered animal + most uses replaced by plastics [_]Buffalo hide - used to be a pretty popular type of leather for some applications. [_]Certain egret feathers - formerly a indispensable material for milliners, now some species have (IIRC) been hunted to extinction.[/ul][/li]More in the spirit of the OP - some types of wood have been logged almost to extinction. Ebony is a good example of this. New modern items made of “ebony” are usually made of ebon-x or some other ebony hybrid or subspecies. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/13 "2009-09-04T18:03:22Z")
> [@Randy\_Seltzer](#): > > Certain egret feathers - formerly a indispensable material for milliners, now some species have (IIRC) been hunted to extinction. No. Some species got down to very low levels in the US in the early 1900s, which prompted protection of both the birds and their nesting sites. Most species have recovered, though not in the huge numbers that once occurred. The Eskimo Curlew, a shorebird, was hunted to (probable) extinction, but that was for meat, not feathers. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/14 "2009-09-04T18:21:28Z")
> [@DarrenS](#): > > Helium, while not extinct, is definitely [on the “endangered” list.](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.08/helium.html) Ironic, considering that it’s the second most abundant element in the universe as a whole. This is the one I was going to mention. I had a friend who was simply obsessed with the earth’s dwindling supply of helium. I could never tell with him whether it was a sincere concern or just an oddball icebreaker (he was kind of a hipster-painter type prone to keeping a stash of oblique, though interesting, conversation topics at hand). A slightly more [recent article](http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_60/iss_6/31_1.shtml) on the dwindling supplies of helium. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/15 "2009-09-04T19:00:54Z")
Well, murian purple is definitely and absolutlely unobtainable, but that’s animal-produced. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/16 "2009-09-04T21:53:03Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > > [@strqwert44](#): > > > > All I can think of is possibly guano. > > Birds stopped pooping? That can’t be good. News to me - I still had to change the bird cage paper yesterday so if it happened it’s been _really_ recent. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/17 "2009-09-04T22:45:01Z")
It’s been mentioned on this board a few times that all iron (or metal? I’m not sure) currently produced is radioactively contaminated because of the fallout of previous atomic explosions, and uncontaminated iron (useful for certain experiments) is actually hard to find - you have to salvage pre-WWII sunken iron ships and the like to get it. Search is messing with me now, so I can’t find any particular cite, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2009, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/18 "2009-09-04T23:22:26Z")
As to Guano, although not “extinct”, it went from mining it 10 meters high in the islands all year round to maybe a couple of months every 7 years ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/19 "2009-09-05T02:43:38Z")
> [@jk1245](#): > > I recall reading about some type of marble or granite that was of particularly high quality that was completely quarried and not available anymore. I can’t seem to find any info on it though. > > I suppose not technically extinct because you could scavenge it from existing buildings, but raw blocks were not available. I read that all the spinich jade – which I presume is a dark green jade – is used up. FWIW, I was going to say helium too. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2009, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865/20 "2009-09-05T08:40:19Z")
If teak counts as a raw material, I think it came close once. Not worldwide, though, & it’s managed sustainably now. I believe there are concerns about the future availability of chrome, due to its use in shoe leather. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-any-raw-materials-gone-extinct/508865.md?page=2)