Final answer:
The impacts of westward expansion on miners included initial opportunities for individual prospectors, the temporary economic benefits of boom towns, and larger socio-economic changes leading to statehood and displacement of Native communities.
Step-by-step explanation:
Miners during the period of westward expansion experienced a range of impacts. On the positive side, early prospectors could initially use simple techniques like panning for gold, which allowed for low barrier entry into mining. In time, however, as surface minerals became exhausted, the cost and difficulty of mining operations increased, which led to large-scale companies taking over with the capital to invest in deep-earth mining, pushing out individual miners.
Secondly, the explosive growth of boom towns offered economic opportunities beyond mining, with towns quickly growing around mining activities. Nevertheless, these towns often rapidly declined into ghost towns once the minerals were depleted, negatively affecting the miners and other residents who had to move elsewhere to seek opportunities, exhibiting the transient nature of mining settlements.
Finally, the influx of miners and other settlers due to the promise of wealth from mining activities accelerated the establishment of statehood for territories out West, bringing political structure but also leading to the displacement of Indigenous populations and other minority groups in these regions.