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copper: Quick Facts

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Facts

Also Known As cuprum • Cu

Photos and Videos

A periodic table element box for copper shows its symbol Cu, atomic number 29, atomic weight 63.546, electron configuration, and name. Icons indicate copper is a solid, weakly basic transition metal with face-centered cubic crystal structure. A key explains the symbols and color coding.
copper
copper
Kitwe: open-pit copper mine
copper cables
cuprite
Six copper pans with brass handles hang on a wooden rack against a white wall.
A sample of copper on smithsonite from the Tsumeb Mine, Tsumeb, Namib.
Gigantic trucks hauling 330 metric tons of ore at the Chuquicamata copper mine, Calama, Chile.
voltammetric wave of copper(II)
Follow copper from green rock in open-pit mines to smelting, conversion, and refining into anode plates
Take a look at researchers studying Mississippians copper work from the Cahokian mounds in southwestern Illinois
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Key People

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Marcus Daly
American industrialist
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William E. Dodge
American industrialist
James Douglas, oil painting by E.W. Grier, 19th century; in a private collection
James Douglas
American engineer
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Sir Chester Beatty
British engineer
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Johan Gottlieb Gahn
Swedish mineralogist

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