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Geology News
Copper Current Events

USGS has published a Fact Sheet on copper. It includes information on the uses of copper, how it forms, supply, demand and future projections.

Did you know that copper consumption in the United States is declining but consumption in India and China is rising rapidly?

The Iron Mountain Mine in California was one of the largest copper mines in the world in the early 1900’s. Since then it has discharged some of the world’s worst water. Now there could be superfund money to clean it up.

China imported a record amount of copper during the month of February, 2009. Could this be a sign that their economy is starting to rebound?

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold plans to lay off most workers at their Chino Mine in New Mexico. Last month they cut about 800 jobs at their western copper and molybdenum mines. Falling commodity prices and the economic downturn are blamed for the cuts.

Some microorganisms use minerals as an energy source. They can be used to extract valuable metals, such as copper, from low-quality ore. This process is called bioleaching.

Recent archaeological investigations have placed a new date on copper mines in the Khirbat al-Nahas area of Jordan about 30 miles south of the Dead Sea. They are now thought to have been in industrial-scale operation during the 10th and 9th centuries BC, making them the likely location for the legendary King Solomon’s Mines.

The price of copper has fallen from about $4.00 per pound down to nearly $2.00 per pound in response to sharply lower demand that exists nearly worldwide.

The US Mint announced four new designs for the penny. The new designs will all have the same Victor D. Brenner bust of President Lincoln that has been used since 1909, however there will be four different reverse designs: his birth and childhood in Kentucky, his formative years in Indiana, his professional life in Illinois and his Presidency in Washington, D.C. The coin will remain a zinc core (97.5%) with copper plating (2.5%).

Quantitative information on the general locations and amounts of undiscovered porphyry copper resources of the world is important to exploration managers, land-use and environmental planners, economists, and policy makers. This publication contains the results of probabilistic estimates of the amounts of copper (Cu), molybdenum (Mo), gold (Au), and silver (Ag) in undiscovered porphyry copper deposits in the Andes Mountains of South America.

The colors in fireworks are produced by adding specific chemicals to the flammable materials that streak through the sky after the charge explodes. Strontium and lithium produce a red color, barium and copper produce green. Fireworks chemists have always been working on ways to make unique displays and now they are working on ways to make them more friendly towards the environment.

China is investing a lot more in South America. Aluminum Corporation of China is spending $2.15 billion on the Toromocho Copper Project. This site has an estimated 1.526 millon tons in copper reserves and will host a new smelter to yield 250,000 tons per year.

An interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about a geologist searching for copper in the Peruvian Andes. The goal is to capture reserves quickly.

A collection of photos that trace some of the activities of geologist, Torsten Danne, who searches for copper in Peru for the Rio Tinto Group.

Stained glass and colored glass are produced by mixing small amounts of metal oxides, sulfides and other metal compounds into the glass melt. Metal compounds of cobalt, gold, nickel and copper impart specific colors to the glass. Other metal compounds such as manganese dioxide and sodium nitrate act as decoloring agents and neutralize the color effects of impurities.

The Mamut copper mine was one of the first open-cast mines in Malaysia, opening in 1975 and operating up until 1999. It produced about 100,000 tons of copper concentrate per year which yielded by-product gold and silver. This article explores some of the problems of degraded water and sedimentation that are associated with this mine.

Nautilus Minerals Image

Nautilus Minerals is using a remotely operated vehicle to conduct the first ever commercial seafloor electromagnetic survey of copper-gold massive sulfide deposits. This is being done in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea between the island chains of New Britain and New Ireland in the western Pacific Ocean. The water is up to 1500 meters deep in the area of the survey. This could be the beginning of deep ocean mining.

Haiti Map

Gold and copper prospecting companies are working in Haiti, some returning to prospects that they started a decade ago. Political violence and social problems still discourage exploration but reports of promising properties are rekindling interest.

LBL.gov Image

In the 1970’s and 1980’s the world thought that polymetallic manganese nodules would be harvested from many parts of the ocean floor. That dream has gone largely unfulfilled. Today the focus is on black smokers – the hot water vents that jet out enormous quantities of water that is rich in metals such as copper, gold and silver. Metallic deposits blanket the ocean floor around these vents and there might be some recovery efficiency in processing their mineral-rich waters.