Copper mining in Arizona, a state of the United States, has been a major industry since the 19th century. In 2007,

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

was the leading

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...

-producing state in the country, producing 750 thousand metric tons of copper, valued at $5.54 billion. Arizona's copper production was 60% of the total for the United States.

Copper mining Copper extraction refers to the methods used to obtain copper from its ores. The conversion of copper consists of a series of physical and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ore source, loca ...

also produces

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

and

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

as byproducts. Byproduct

molybdenum Molybdenum is a chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42 which is located in period 5 and group 6. The name is from Neo-Latin ''molybdaenum'', which is based on Ancient Greek ', meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lead ...

from copper mining makes

the nation's second-largest producer of that metal. Although copper mineralization was found by the earliest Spanish explorers of Arizona, the territory was remote, and copper could seldom be profitably mined and shipped. Early Spanish, Mexican, and American prospectors searched for gold and silver (see ''

Silver mining in Arizona Silver mining in Arizona was a powerful stimulus for exploration and prospecting in early Arizona. Cumulative silver production through 1981 totaled 490 million troy ounces (15 million kg). However, only about 10% of Arizona's silver producti ...

''), and ignored copper. It was not until the completion of the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

in 1876 that copper became broadly economic to mine and ship to market. All copper mining was done by underground methods until the early 20th century. After the

Bingham Canyon mine The Bingham Canyon Mine, more commonly known as Kennecott Copper Mine among locals, is an open-pit mining operation extracting a large porphyry copper deposit southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, in the Oquirrh Mountains. The mine is the largest m ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

successfully mined a large low-grade copper deposit from a large open pit, the same technique was applied to Arizona's

porphyry copper Porphyry copper deposits are copper ore bodies that are formed from hydrothermal fluids that originate from a voluminous magma chamber several kilometers below the deposit itself. Predating or associated with those fluids are vertical dikes of ...

deposits. Arizona's first open pit copper mine opened at Ajo in 1917.

Copper mining districts

Jerome

Native Americans used copper minerals of the Verde district at modern-day

Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is co ...

as pigment to decorate skin and textiles. The first European to visit the area is thought to be Spanish explorer Antonio de Espejo, who found silver at a location in central Arizona in 1583. No mining resulted, and

Juan de Oñate Juan de Oñate y Salazar (; 1550–1626) was a Spanish conquistador from New Spain, explorer, and colonial governor of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México in the viceroyalty of New Spain. He led early Spanish expeditions to the Great ...

led another expedition searching for Espejo's silver location in 1598; many claims were staked, but the expeditioners returned to Santa Fe without mining any silver, and the deposits remained unexploited. The United Verde mine exhausted the rich oxidized ores in 1884, and the mine closed.

William A. Clark William Andrews Clark Sr. (January 8, 1839March 2, 1925) was an American politician and entrepreneur, involved with mining, banking, and railroads. Biography Clark was born in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. He moved with his family to Iowa in 1 ...

of Montana visited the district in 1888, bought it, and reopened the mine. The smelter at Clarkdale was built in 1915.Anderson C. A., (1969). "Copper", ''Mineral and Water Resources of Arizona'', Arizona Bureau of Mines, Bulletin 180, pp. 117–56.

Ajo

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both ...

mined on a small scale at Ajo as early as 1750. After the

Gadsden Purchase The Gadsden Purchase ( es, region=MX, la Venta de La Mesilla "The Sale of La Mesilla") is a region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that the United States acquired from Mexico by the Treaty of Mesilla, which took effe ...

brought the southern

into the United States in 1853, the mine was reopened in 1855, and shipped high-grade ore to

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the C ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. However, the remote desert location made mining generally uneconomic without onsite treatment. The area was mostly idle until the New Cornelia mine opened in 1917 as the first large open-pit mine in Arizona. Mining continued in the district until 1983. The district produced 6.304 billion pounds of copper.

Clifton-Morenci district

Prospectors from

Silver City, New Mexico Silver City is a town in Grant County, New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat and the home of Western New Mexico University. As of the 2010 census the population was 10,315. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,704. History ...

discovered copper mineralization at Morenci, also known as the Greenlee district in 1872. Mining began the following year, and miners extracted and smelted high-grade copper ore until a railroad reached the district in 1884 and a concentrator made mining and processing of low-grade ore economical. The Morenci mine, owned jointly by Freeport-McMoran and Sumitomo, is the largest copper producer in the state, and regularly contributes about half of Arizona's copper production.

Bisbee (Warren district)

An army scout noted copper mineralization in the Warren district at present-day Bisbee in 1877. Production began in 1880 after a rich discovery of copper oxide on the Copper Queen claim. The success of the Copper Queen mine convinced

Phelps Dodge Phelps Dodge Corporation was an American mining company founded in 1834 as an import-export firm by Anson Greene Phelps and his two sons-in-law William Earle Dodge, Sr. and Daniel James. The latter two ran Phelps, James & Co., the part of the o ...

to buy the adjacent Atlantic claim in 1881.

later bought control of the Copper Queen and adjacent claims. Although Phelps Dodge was the largest mining company in Bisbee, it was not the only one. The Calumet and Arizona Mining Company organized in March, 1901 and operated several large and profitable mines adjacent to the Copper Queen. By 1907, the C&A was the fourth-most productive copper mine in Arizona, and ran its own smelter in

Douglas, Arizona Douglas is a city in Cochise County, Arizona, United States that lies in the north-west to south-east running Sulpher Springs Valley. Douglas has a border crossing with Mexico at Agua Prieta and a history of mining. The population was 16,531 ...

. Phelps Dodge started mining the Lavender open pit in the early 1950s. The Lavender pit closed in 1974. The Copper Queen mine, Bisbee's first working mine, was also its last. Mining stopped in 1975, although the Copper Queen still offers tours. The Warren district is credited with having produced 7.92 billion pounds (3.59 million mt) of copper. In addition, the district recovered 324 million pounds (147,000 t) of lead, 355 million pounds (161,000 t) of zinc, 28 million pounds (13,000 t) of manganese, 2.79 million ounces (86.8 t) of gold and 102 million ounces (3177 t) of silver.

Globe-Miami district

Silver mining started at

Globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glo ...

in 1874. The silver mines shut down in 1877, but the following year copper mining took over.

White Mesa district

The White Mesa copper-mining district is in the western part of the

Navajo The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Southwestern United States. With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest fe ...

reservation, northeast of Flagstaff, in

Coconino County Coconino County is a county in the north-central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. Its population was 145,101 at the 2020 census. The county seat is Flagstaff. The county takes its name from ''Cohonino'', a name applied to the Havasupai ...

. The copper deposits consist of

malachite Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fracture ...

and

chrysocolla Chrysocolla ( ) is a hydrated copper phyllosilicate mineral and mineraloid with formula (x<1) or . The structure of the mineral has been questioned, as a 2006 spectrographic study suggest material identified as ...

as grain coatings in the

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

Navajo Sandstone. They were first mined on a small scale by

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into se ...

settlers in the 19th century, then briefly in 1917, and again 1939–1941. The district produced about 550,000 pounds of copper and a small amount of silver.

Copper mining today

Significant active Arizona copper mines in 2012, by order of output:

Leading copper-producing mines in 2015

Leading copper-producing mines in the Arizona in 2015, in order of output: Pima Co

Five of the mines are owned and operated by

Freeport-McMoRan Freeport-McMoRan Inc., often called Freeport, is an American mining company based in the Freeport-McMoRan Center, in Phoenix, Arizona. The company is the world's largest producer of molybdenum, is a major copper producer and operates the world's ...

, three by

ASARCO Asarco LLC (American Smelting and Refining Company) is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company has been a subsidiary of Grupo México since 1999. Its three larg ...

, and one each by Capstone Mining and KGHM International, Ltd.

New operations

Mining of the

Resolution Copper Resolution Copper (RCM) is a joint venture owned by Rio Tinto and BHP formed to develop and operate an underground copper mine near Superior, Arizona, U.S. The project targets a deep-seated porphyry copper deposit located under the now inacti ...

deposit in Pinal County, potentially the largest copper mine in Arizona, is stalled pending a proposed land swap with the federal government. Resolution Copper has proposed to give the federal government of environmentally sensitive land in Arizona in exchange for the proposed mine site. In May 2009 Arizona Democratic congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick introduced legislation in Washington to complete the land swap. The swap already has the support of Arizona's two Republican senators. As of July 2017, the project was still under review by the US Government.Emily Flitter, Reuters (13 July 2017)
''Massive copper mine tests Trump's push to slash regulation''
/ref> The Sunnyside mine project is in development in Santa Cruz County.

References

External links

* Bideaux, Richard A., and Terry C. Wallace
"Arizona Copper"
– ''Rocks & Minerals''. – (c/o HighBeam Research at Encyclopedia.com.) – January/February 1997 (72:01; January 1, 1997).
''Arizona's Metallic Resources – Trends and Opportunities 2008''
– Arizona Department of Mines and Minerals Resources
Map of Major Mines and Developing Projects 2007
– Arizona Department of Mines and Minerals Resources< {{DEFAULTSORT:Copper Mining In Arizona

Geography of Arizona Mining in Arizona