[en] The North American minerals and metals industry has experienced a shockwave of change during the past two decades but is making a gallant comeback attempt, says Carmine Nappi, a mineral economist at the University of Montreal in Canada. Beginning in the mid-1970s, demand for major metals-aluminum, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc-dropped precipitately as the industrialized world shifted from a products to a services economy and as manufacturers discovered ways to make their products lighter, smaller, and more efficient. At the same time, Nappi says, rising energy and environmental costs pushed mining costs upward and squeezed profit margins, while foreign competitors stepped up their pressure. As a result, more than 7,000 US jobs in the minerals and metals industry were lost between 1980 and 1985. The value of mining production dropped $3.3 billion, and the industry went from $1.9 billion in profits to $900 million in losses. The industry responded to the crisis in different ways, Nappi says. Most zinc producers simply shut down, and many aluminum smelters, especially in the Southeast, also became resigned to their fate. Copper producers, however, fought back, changed the ways they did business, and survived. While conceding that the North American minerals and metals industry may never be as robust again as it was two decades ago, Nappi says the recent changes have slowed, and in some cases reversed, the hemorrhaging