New answers tagged natural-resources
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The short answer is "anything." All you need is an evolutionary pressure to be X meters tall but not X+1 meters tall, and natural selection will take over. Balances in natural things have proven remarkably precise. Averages work even better. If you can measure the length of 100 things end-to-end, you can use the central limit theorem to get a more ...
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Capillary action
When hollow tube is submerged to a fluid, the surface level inside tube is different from the outside, as if defying gravity. This difference is universal and can be used to set a standard length. For example with glass tube in water, in a 3.85 mm radius tube, the water would rise 3.85 mm. No other tube diameter can produce the ratio of 1 ...
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If your culture is scientifically advanced, a truly uiversal length unit is the Planck length. which is ca. 1.616×10-35 m. Using 1035 times this length gives you a suitable length of 1.616 m.
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The use of carats as unit of weight comes from the relatively narrow distribution of weight of the seed of carob
The unit "carat", used for weighing precious metal and stones, also comes from κεράτιον, as alluding to an ancient practice of weighing gold and gemstones against the seeds of the carob tree by people in the Middle East. The system was ...
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A large femur (thigh-bone) of an individual creature.
Bones are relatively weather resistant and can last for a long time, so a particular femur off of a historical hunt may be passed on, similar to the metre bar.
There are a few disadvantages to this solution:
It is unique and may become damaged, making it worthless.
It is unique and is therefore not ...
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While there would be specific methods used depending on the ore and nature of the environment, I'm going to assume there is a high tech society or entity actually doing the mining (a sort of space mining operation), which can be applicable to almost any environment.
A source of high intensity heat energy is needed, such as a large solar mirror or electric ...
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would the ore itself be different in such an environment?
Pretty much all the iron ores on Earth are oxides and hydroxides. No oxygen, no water, no conventional iron ores. (I listed a few of the common ores in another answer of mine with various relevant wikipedia links; I shan't copy it all out here).
If you had water, you'd have a ready supply of oxygen, ...
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