What is gypsum?
Technically speaking, gypsum is a naturally occurring hydrated salt of calcium and sulfate (CaSO4-2H2O). Practically speaking, gypsum has uses beyond most people's imagination. Gypsum is an abundant mineral that was formed millions of years ago due to evaporation of shallow seas. It is believed that as the seawater became more concentrated, dissolved calcium and sulfur precipitated as calcium sulfate onto the sea floor. Today gypsum is mined and processed for a wide range of uses. Although most people are not aware of many of its uses, the chemical and physical properties of gypsum make it a part of our everyday lives.

Gypsum is typically mined in an open pit quarry. The process used to mine gypsum is very similar to that used in many other rock quarries. First the exposed gypsum is fractured by drilling and blasting. The fractured gypsum is then loaded onto trucks and transported to a processing plant. At the processing plant, the large gypsum ore is reduced in size by passing it through a large crusher. Crushing the ore generates a mixture of smaller rocks that can be cleaned and sorted by size. Sorting is accomplished by passing the gypsum through a series of vibrating screens. Sorted rock is then loaded for distribution to be further processed by the end user.