Copper Mineral Group: NATIVE ELEMENTS
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 SPECIMEN ORIGIN: Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan, USA |
This rock has visible copper in it. It has been cut and sealed with epoxy to protect the bright copper from tarnishing and to highlight the green color which is often an indicator of a copper ore rock. Copper tarnishes to a dark copper-brown and then pale green after many years.
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Sculptured Copper Michigan's native copper is used to form this interesting sculpture. Molten copper at 2200 degrees F is poured into straw which is immersed in water resulting in the straw burning away and the new copper form solidifying within the cool water. Old customs of the early miners indicated that lead was used in the above process and fortune telling was a pastime on New Years day; good or bad luck was determined by the shape and size of the new sculpture formed. This sculpture was manufactured in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula |
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