Where to mine copper ore in wow. Minerals: Copper ores. The largest mines are considered
In the depths of the earth there are quite a large number of different minerals that can be used to produce various materials. Copper ore is quite widespread - it is used for processing and producing various substances that are used in industry. It is worth considering that such ore, which contains copper, may also contain other minerals. It is recommended to use earthen rock that contains at least 0.5-1% metal.
Classification
A huge amount of a wide variety of copper ores are being mined. The classification is carried out according to their origin. The following groups of copper ores are distinguished:
- Pyrite has become quite widespread. The rock is a compound of iron and copper and has a large number of various inclusions and veins of other impurities.
- Stratiform is represented by a combination of copper shales and sandstones. This kind of rock has also become widespread, as it is represented by a large deposit. The main characteristics include a simple sheet shape, as well as a uniform distribution of all useful components. Due to this, copper rock of this type is most in demand, as it allows for productivity at the same level.
- Copper-nickel. This ore is characterized by massive inclusions of cobalt and gold textures, as well as platinum group metals. The deposits are in vein and sheet form.
- Porphyry copper or hydrothermal. Copper ore deposits of this kind contain a high concentration of silver and gold, selenium and other chemicals. In addition, all useful substances are in higher concentrations, due to which the breed is in demand. It is extremely rare.
- Carbonate. This group includes iron-copper and carbonatite ore. It is worth considering that this breed was found only in South Africa. The mine being developed is classified as massive alkaline rock.
- Skarn is a group that is characterized by a local location in a wide variety of rocks. Characteristic properties include small size and complex morphology. It is worth considering that in this case the ore containing copper has a high concentration. However, the metal is unevenly distributed. The rocks being mined have a copper concentration of about three percent.
Copper practically does not occur, for example, like gold, in the form of massive nuggets. The largest such formation can be called a deposit in North America, the mass of which is 420 tons. With 250 types of copper, only 20 of them are widely used in their pure form, others are used only as alloying elements.
Copper ore deposits
Copper is considered the most common metal, which is used in a wide variety of industries. Deposits of copper ore are found in almost all countries. An example is the discovery of deposits in Arizona and Nevada. Copper ore is also mined in Cuba, where oxide deposits are common. In Peru, chloride formations are being mined.
The use of the mined copper mixture is associated with the production of various metals. There are two main copper production technologies:
- hydrometallurgical;
- pyrometallurgical.
The second method involves fire refining of metal. Due to this, ore can be processed in almost any volume. In addition, exposure to fire allows almost all useful substances to be extracted from the rock. Pyrometallurgical technology is used to isolate copper from rocks that have a low degree of metal enrichment. The hydrometallurgical method is used exclusively for processing oxidized and native rock, which also have low copper concentrations.
In conclusion, we note that copper today is included in almost all alloys. Its addition as an alloying element allows you to change the basic performance properties.
This Mining guide provides general advice on how to quickly level up your profession to the maximum. It is worth considering that the guide only indicates what kind of ore to dig and where it is most often found. You will have to choose routes around locations yourself - it is not difficult, plus it can help you complete the Explorer achievement.
Mining 1 - 65
Collect: Copper Ore (Copper Vein)
In the beginning, as usual, everything is simple. We upgrade the profession to about 50 in gathering, after which we smelt the ore into Copper Ingots. Copper veins are found everywhere in the starting locations.
* at skill level 50 go to the trainer and learn Mining (Journeyman)
Mining 66 - 125
Collect: Tin Ore (Tin Vein), Silver Ore (Silver Vein), Ognevit Ore (Aromatic Vein), Low-grade Bloody Ore (Small Bloodstone Deposit)
This part is probably because the initial one was simple, on the contrary, complex, necessary ore is found less often. Regardless of the faction, the easiest option is to travel to the Wetlands region, where, in Telgen's Cave (next to the entrance to Dun Algaz) there are huge deposits of Ognevite ore. The ore is a quest item, but it allows you to raise the skill without any problems. In addition, the time for the appearance of veins is quite short.
An alternative option would be Poor Blood Ore, which is mined in the Arathi Highlands. A small deposit of bloodstone is found only in a cave with kobolds, not far from the Horde settlement of Fallen Hammer.
* at skill level 125 go to the trainer and learn Mining (Craftsman)
Mining 126 - 175
Collect: Iron Ore (Iron Deposits) and Gold Ore (Gold Mine)
Both of these minerals are common in the Arathi Highlands, especially if you drive around the edges of the map. In addition to this location, you can turn your attention to Thousand Needles, the north of Stranglethorn Vale and the Badlands. We recommend Arathi Highlands, but to each his own.
Mining 176 - 250
Collect: Mithril Ore (Mithril Deposits) and True Silver Ore (True Silver Deposits)
The ideal option for collecting these ores is the Inner Earths. Since ancient times, Tanaris has been considered the rich Mithril region, where, by the way, there are Deposits of true silver. Mithril is found in large quantities in the Badlands, but it is far away. The choice, as always, is yours.
* at skill level 200 go to the trainer and learn Mining (Workshop)
Mining 251 - 300
Collect: Thorium Ore (Small Thorium Vein, Rich Thorium Vein)
First, you should visit the Un'Goro Crater and rummage there until the skill level reaches 275, after which you can safely go to Winter Springs and finish the profession up to 300 there. However, you can start right away in Winter Springs, but drive past Rich Thorium Veins without the possibility of them It will be very difficult to dig out.
* at skill level 275 go to the trainer and learn Mining (Master)
Mining 300 - 325
Collect: Fel Iron (Fel Iron Deposit)
It is found throughout Outland, but it is easier to dig it on Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh or Terrorcare Forest. There are no specific routes, especially for people with land mounts - where we see, we dig.
Mining 325-375
Collect: Adamantite Ore (Adamantite Deposits, Rich Adamantite Deposits), Fel Iron (Fel Iron Deposit), Khorium Ore (Khorium Vein)
Many people think that the best place to dig for Adamantite Ore is Nagrand. I won’t argue, that’s the way it is. However, before raising your skill level to 350, I would advise going to the Netherstorm (Fel Iron and Adamantite are often found), and after 350 to Nagrand, although you can stay in the Netherstorm. The choice is yours - in terms of the total number of deposits that appear, Nagrand is the leader; on the other hand, there are fewer competitors in the Netherstorm, so if you're lucky, you'll save about thirty minutes.
* at skill level 350 go to the trainer and learn Mining (Grand Master)
Mining 375-400
Collect: Cobalt Ore (Cobalt Deposits, Rich Cobalt Deposits)
We collect ore starting from the starting zones of WotLK - Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord and ending with Zul'Drak (the richest location in the Cobalt Deposits in the game). As you level up your character, you can easily increase your profession to 400. If you are level 80 and level up from scratch - your choice: 260% mount and Zul'Drak.
Mining 400-450
Collect: Saronite Ore (Saronite Deposit, Rich Saronite Deposit)
I won’t reveal a secret if I say - the best place to search for Saronite deposits is the Sholozar Lowland. A lot of competitors, fights for the right to dig up the next portion of ore and running around from the cemetery in this location is a familiar and everyday thing. However, there is so much ore that there is still enough for everyone. An hour's work at most, regardless of whether you have a flying mount or not.
Arathi Highlands, Thousand Needles;
From 1 to 65
This is a very, very tedious stage in leveling up Mining, because there are extremely few Tin veins.
Upon reaching skill level 75, smelt all ore into ingots, and then all [Tin Ingots] And [Copper Ingots] V [Bronze Ingots]. Your skill should increase to level 90-95.
At skill level 75 you will learn how to smelt [Silver Ore] into ingots - this will help you reach skill level 125: buy Silver Ore at the auction, smelt it and sell it in ingots. If the ore on your server is too expensive, then keep mining [Tin Ore] and create [Bronze Ingots] up to skill level 125. If you find Silver Ore, then it is advisable to smelt the mined ore immediately, since it is better to do this before the skill of smelting silver ore into an ingot turns green (at skill level 122).
[Tin], [Silver] And [Copper] You can mine ores in these locations:
From 125 to 175
At skill level 155 you will be able to smelt Gold Ore into bars. At the auction, buy 30 ore and smelt it - in the end, you should get about 175 skill level. [Gold bars] can be sold at auction. If the gold ore on the server is cheap, then there is a good chance to earn a little extra money.
Collect [Iron Ore], [Tin Ore] And [Gold Ore] in the following locations:
| Arathi Highlands | Thousand Needles |
From 175 to 245
Once you reach skill level 200, visit a trainer and learn to become a Craftsman.
At skill level 230 you will learn how to turn truesilver ore into ingots - a true ability that will help you reach skill level 245.
[Mithril Ore] And [True Silver Ore] convenient to collect in these areas:
From 245 to 300
This stage is the most difficult - thorium veins are quite rare, and there are quite a lot of miners on them.
Gain 5 skill levels by mining ore from Small Thorium Veins, then visit a trainer and learn how to smelt thorium ore into ingots. The fastest way to level up your skill level to 270 is by smelting - buy about 50 ore and smelt it into ingots (ingots can be sold at auction at a price that is often comparable to ore prices). If you haven't already [Enchant Gloves - Mining II], then now is the time to do this, because the ability to work with rich thorium veins is just 5 skill levels away.
For characters above level 65, it is recommended to pretend to be miners in Wintersprings, otherwise the best place to level up will be the Eastern Plaguelands. Silithus is, by and large, a backup option. If Winterspring and the Eastern Plaguelands are all dug up or ganked, then welcome to Silithus.
fight for [Thorium Ore] Here:
| Eastern Plaguelands |
Copper is a ductile metal of golden-pink color, which in its pure form is found in nature more often than nuggets of gold or silver. But copper is mainly mined from copper ores - natural mineral formations. Most copper is found in sulfide ores. In oxidation zones, copper is found in most silicates, carbonates and oxides. Copper is also found in sedimentary rocks: shales and cuprous sandstones.
Modern science knows more than 200 minerals containing copper. In industry, metal extracted from sulfates is most often used, including:
- Chalcocite (79% copper);
- Bornite (up to 65%);
- Chalcopyrite, or copper pyrite (about 35%).
Copper is also contained in copper-nickel compounds. The most famous of them is cubanite (up to 45% copper). Of the oxidized ores, it is worth noting cuprite (88%), malachite (up to 58%), azurite (up to 56%). Sometimes there are deposits of native copper.
Characteristics and types of copper
Copper is one of the first metals that people began to use. The chemical symbol is Cu (cuprum). This metal has high thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance, and electrical conductivity. Copper melts at low temperatures, is excellent for soldering, and the metal is easy to cut and process.
Some copper compounds can be toxic to humans. High levels of copper in water and food can cause liver and gallbladder diseases. Quarries left behind after copper mining become sources of toxins. For example, Berkeley Pit Lake, formed in the crater of a former copper mine, is considered the most toxic lake in the world. But the bactericidal properties of copper are disproportionately higher. It has been proven that copper helps fight influenza viruses and destroys staphylococci.
In industry, copper is rarely used in its pure form. The following alloys have found greater use:
- Brass (an alloy of copper and zinc);
- Bronze (with tin);
- Babbitts (with lead);
- Cupronickel (with nickel);
- Dural (with aluminum);
- Jewelry alloy (with gold).
Copper deposits and mining
The largest copper deposit in the world is located in Chile - the Esconida quarry. Huge deposits of native copper were discovered here.
Other large deposits:
- Mines on the Keweenaw Peninsula (USA, Michigan);
- Chuquicamata mine in Chile (up to 600 thousand tons per year);
- Corocoro mine in Bolivia;
- Gumishevsky mine (Middle Urals, Russia) - now depleted;
- Valley of the Levikha River (Middle Urals, Russia);
- Gabbro massif (Italy).
According to the US Geological Survey, the largest copper deposits belong to Chile. Next come the USA, Russia, Peru and Mexico.
Copper mining methods:
- Open;
- Hydrometallurgical - when copper is leached from the rock with a weak solution of sulfuric acid;
- Pyrometallurgical - consists of several stages (concentration, roasting, smelting for matte, purging and refining).
Careful handling of copper ores
Copper ores are a non-renewable resource, and therefore their development requires careful treatment, both in mining methods and in industrial processing.
Industry is increasingly becoming more demanding of constant volumes of resources received, which leads to their gradual depletion. To do this, it is necessary to more carefully control the extraction of copper ores, along with other non-renewable resources such as oil, natural gas, and use them more carefully and rationally, both in industrial and domestic consumption.
Copper Applications
Copper is one of the most important non-ferrous metals, which has found application in almost all spheres of human activity.
- Electrical industry (wires, wire);
- Mechanical engineering (starter, power windows, radiators, coolers, bearings);
- Shipbuilding (hull plating);
- Construction (pipes, pipelines, roofing and facing materials, bathtubs, faucets, sinks);
- In art (jewelry, statues, coinage);
- In everyday life (air conditioners, microwave ovens, coins, food additives, musical instruments).
Interestingly, the Statue of Liberty is made of copper. Its construction required about 80 tons of metal. And in Nepal, copper is considered a sacred metal.
Copper, actively used in almost all industries, is mined from various ores, the most common of which is bornite. The popularity of this copper ore is explained not only by the high copper content in its composition, but also by significant reserves of bornite in the bowels of our planet.
Copper ore deposits
Copper ores are a collection of minerals that, in addition to copper, contain other elements that shape their properties, in particular nickel. The copper ore category includes those types of ores that contain such an amount of this metal that it is economically feasible to extract it by industrial methods. These conditions are satisfied by ores whose copper content is in the range of 0.5–1%. Our planet has a reserve of copper-containing resources, the bulk of which (90%) are copper-nickel ores.
Most of the copper ore reserves in Russia are located in Eastern Siberia, on the Kola Peninsula, in the Ural region. Chile is on the list of leaders in total reserves of such ores; deposits are also being developed in the following countries: USA (porphyry ores), Kazakhstan, Zambia, Poland, Canada, Armenia, Zaire, Peru (porphyry ores), Congo, Uzbekistan. Experts have calculated that large copper deposits in all countries contain a total of about 680 million tons. Naturally, the question of how copper is mined in different countries must be considered separately.
All copper ore deposits are divided into several categories, differing in genetic and industrial-geological characteristics:
- stratiform group represented by copper shales and sandstones;
- pyrite ores, which include native and vein copper;
- hydrothermal, including ores called porphyry copper;
- igneous, which are represented by the most common ores of the copper-nickel type;
- skarn type ores;
- carbonate, represented by ores of the iron-copper and carbonatite type.
In Russia, it is carried out mainly in shale and sand deposits, in which the ore is contained in copper pyrite, copper-nickel and porphyry copper forms.
Natural compounds containing copper
Pure copper, which is what its nuggets represent, is found in nature in very small quantities. Copper is mainly found in nature in the form of various compounds, the most common of which are the following.
- Bornite is a mineral that got its name in honor of the Czech scientist I. Born. This is a sulfide ore, the chemical composition of which is characterized by its formula - Cu5FeS4. Bornite has other names: variegated pyrite, copper purple. In nature, this ore is presented in two polymorphic forms: low-temperature tetragonal-scalenohedral (temperature less than 228 degrees) and high-temperature cubic-hexaoctahedral (more than 228 degrees). This mineral can have different types depending on its origin. Thus, exogenous bornite is a secondary early sulfide, which is very unstable and is easily destroyed by weathering. The second type, endogenous bornite, is characterized by variable chemical composition, which may contain chalcocite, galena, sphalerite, pyrite and chalcopyrite. Theoretically, minerals of these types can contain from 25.5% sulfur, more than 11.2% iron and over 63.3% copper, but in practice this content of these elements is never maintained.
- Chalcopyrite is a mineral whose chemical composition is characterized by the formula CuFeS2. Chalcopyrite, which is of hydrothermal origin, was previously called copper pyrite. Along with sphalerite and galena, it is included in the category of polymetallic ores. This mineral, which, in addition to copper, contains iron and sulfur, is formed as a result of metamorphic processes and can be present in two types of copper ores: contact-metasomatic type (skarns) and mountain metasomatic (greisens).
- Chalcocite is a sulfide ore, the chemical composition of which is characterized by the formula Cu2S. This ore contains a significant amount of copper (79.8%) and sulfur (20.2%). This ore is often referred to as “copper lustre,” due to the fact that its surface appears as a shiny metal, varying in shades from lead-gray to completely black. In copper-bearing ores, chalcocite appears as dense or fine-grained inclusions.
In nature, there are also rarer minerals that contain copper.
- Cuprite (Cu2O), an oxide mineral, can often be found in places where there is malachite and native copper.
- Covelline is a sulfide rock formed metasomatically. This mineral, whose copper content is 66.5%, was first discovered at the beginning of the last century in the vicinity of Vesuvius. Now covellite is actively mined in deposits in countries such as the USA, Serbia, Italy, and Chile.
- Malachite is a mineral well known to everyone as an ornamental stone. Surely everyone has seen products made from this beautiful mineral in the photo or even owns them. Malachite, which is very popular in Russia, is copper carbonate or copper dihydrocoxcarbonate, which belongs to the category of polymetallic copper-containing ores. The malachite found indicates that there are deposits of other minerals containing copper nearby. In our country, a large deposit of this mineral is located in the Nizhny Tagil region; previously it was mined in the Urals, but now its reserves there are significantly depleted and are not being developed.
- Azurite is a mineral that is also called “copper blue” due to its blue color. It is characterized by a hardness of 3.5–4 units; its main deposits are developed in Morocco, Namibia, Congo, England, Australia, France and Greece. Azurite is often intergrown with malachite and occurs in places where deposits of sulfide-type copper-bearing ores are located nearby.
Copper production technologies
To extract copper from the minerals and ores that we discussed above, modern industry uses three technologies: hydrometallurgical, pyrometallurgical and electrolysis. The pyrometallurgical method of copper enrichment, which is the most common, uses chalcopyrite as a raw material. This technology involves performing several sequential operations. At the first stage, copper ore is enriched, for which oxidative roasting or flotation is used.
The flotation method is based on the fact that the gangue and its parts containing copper are wetted differently. When the entire mass of rock is placed in a bath with a liquid composition in which air bubbles are formed, the part that contains mineral elements is transported by these bubbles to the surface, adhering to them. As a result, a concentrate is collected on the surface of the bath - blister copper, which contains from 10 to 35% of this metal. It is from such a powdery concentrate that what follows occurs.
Oxidative roasting looks somewhat different, with the help of which copper ores containing a significant amount of sulfur are enriched. This technology involves heating the ore to a temperature of 700–8000, as a result of which sulfides are oxidized and the sulfur content in copper ore is reduced by almost half. After such roasting, the enriched ore is melted in reverberatory or shaft furnaces at a temperature of 14500, resulting in matte - an alloy consisting of copper and iron sulfides.
