Minerals with Copper – Which Minerals Have The Most Copper
Copper has been extracted from ore for many years. This metal has proven quite useful throughout history and in many current uses today. Getting to the copper from those minerals with copper does require a process and that process can be expensive.
So choosing the minerals with copper to extract its copper, becomes an interesting decision. There are factors such as cost as mentioned, availability, and ease of retrieval to consider. Also, finding the minerals with the most copper becomes one of the factors in the equation.
There are plenty of minerals with copper in them. We will focus on the minerals found with the most copper content and what percentage.
Cuprite – 88.8%
Cuprite is only considered to be a minor ore of copper. With so much copper in it, why this mineral ore is not mined for copper can be a good question.
Quite simply this mineral is not as abundant as some of the other minerals with copper in them. Cuprite will often occur around other abundant copper bearing minerals such as malachite, azurite, and native copper.
Cuprite can form in some very beautiful red crystals. Most of these crystals are way too small to cut into gems, but the ones that are, can make nice brilliant red gemstones.
Chalcocite – 79.8%
This mineral is often found in sedimentary rocks. Chalcocite has been mined for copper for hundreds of years. It’s high in copper, it’s a very soft mineral, and it can be more readily separated from its sulfur content to get at that copper.
One really cool thing about this mineral with copper, is it can form in some shinny and erratic crystal formations. With a metallic luster and in crystal form, this mineral makes a pretty neat specimen for collection and display.
Digenite – 78.1%
Digenite is not a very well-known mineral to many. This mineral in natural form is not really sought after for its high copper contents. This may be due to digenite breaking down easy as it does not really form a great crystal structure.
From my research of this mineral it seems like it is fairly unstable. It will often have transitioned to surrounding copper sulfide minerals such as chalcocite, covellite, bornite, and chalcopyrite. With some iron contents it can also be found around pyrite.
If digenite is found as a good specimen it may have more value than some of the other copper bearing minerals due to rarity.
Covellite – 66.5%
Covellite is one of those rarer minerals with copper. Not being found in large abundance keeps this mineral from being an important mineral of copper. It can have a bluish and purplish submetallic look that can be desirable for mineral collectors.
This mineral is considered a natural superconductor. In as such, research has been going on with this mineral in applying it to applications such as lithium batteries, gas sensors, and solar electric devices.
Covellite can often be confused with bornite due to its colors.
Bornite – 63.3%
Bornite is a mineral that looks brownish to maybe reddish in color. When exposed to the elements it changes its color to metallic blues and purples. This colorful mineral with copper will occur with the more common chalcopyrite.
This mineral is a popular one for rock and mineral collectors. Often what is sold as bornite will be in fact treated chalcopyrite. For more information on this copper bearing mineral, you can read more about it in my article “All About Bornite”
Malachite – 57.7%
If you are a person that loves the color green, like myself, the mineral malachite will definitely capture you liking. Though it is not often used as a source of copper, with the demand for metals, this is changing.
It is a bit more difficult to extract copper from malachite and the copper is considered a little lower grade. With the advancement of some technologies though, acids can easily dissolve this mineral and the copper is cheaper to extract.
There is a saying out there, and I paraphrase it, “When you find large amounts of malachite, finding native copper is highly likely as well”.
As a rock and mineral collector I know that larger specimens of malachite are expensive. If industry moves to extract copper from malachite more frequently, I can only image those cool looking specimens will become pricier.
For more information on malachite, I highly recommend reading my article “All About Malachite”
Azurite – 55.1%
I suppose many have their favorite color as blue. Azurite is one of the best examples of a blue mineral with copper. Azurite is not stable in air and overtime will be “substituted or replaced” by malachite. This weathering process happens when carbon dioxide is replaced with water, changing the ratio to more of a malachite.
Azurite was mainly used as a pigment in the past, but now is really more of a collector’s item and used in jewelry.
For more information on this very blue copper mineral, you can read up on it here “All About Azurite”.
Chalcopyrite – 34.5%
I have listed chalcopyrite along with these other high copper bearing minerals. Chalcopyrite is a great mineral with copper in it, but it does not have as much as some of the ones I’ve already listed. Extraction of copper ore depends on more than just copper contents as I mention above.
Chalcopyrite is the most common or major ore of copper, which makes it cheap and easily accessed. The mineral is more likely to have less impurities to exclude from the extraction process. These key points make it affordable and easy for copper extraction.
This makes chalcopyrite the mineral most used today to extract copper. As of today, a little over 50% of copper mined comes from chalcopyrite ore.
Native Copper – 100%
Native copper is a mineral and not a rock of any sort as some might say it. It is also an element on the periodic chart. What makes it a mineral, is when it occurs naturally in nature.
I know I have put this down as 100% copper contents, but keep in mind that any mineral in nature will have some impurities. So this 100% number can go down from there in percentage the more impurities that are within the native copper.
