Comment by jandrewrogers
11 hours ago
The vast copper-producing region of the US has large areas of similar mineralization. If they found it in the Atacama then you can find it in the US as well.
11 hours ago
The vast copper-producing region of the US has large areas of similar mineralization. If they found it in the Atacama then you can find it in the US as well.
You sure can! Small amounts have been confirmed in Arizona. I wouldn’t be surprised if deposits were quite extensive. Over 10 different confirmed locations worldwide. See the Mindat page on herbertsmithite if you’re curious
Good shout for Mindat, I should have searched that immediately (I use it for other things).
Looking at the chemical structure it is a supergene mineral but what makes it unique is that it has zinc without the metals that normally associated with zinc in these deposits. That is an unusual elemental configuration. It seems like a thing you could model but it isn’t surprising that no one has because it wouldn’t have a use in mining.
The places where you would find this ore may not be in places with commercially viable deposit scale as a copper play, especially if it is mostly copper-zinc. The US west is littered with concentrated micro-deposits of diverse copper minerals but no one maps them in a serious way.
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