Copper (CU-0026)

specimen number:
9273189

location:
Rubtsovsk Mine, Rubtsovsky, Altai Krai, Russia

description:

Thick robust bright lustrous attractive crystallized cluster of native copper. This is in super condition all around.

The Rubtsovsk mine, also known as the Rubtsovskoe or Poteryaevskoe mine, located near the town of Rubtsovsk in the Altai Krai region of southwestern Siberia, Russia, was a specialized polymetallic operation famous for producing world-class copper minerals. Geologically, the deposit belongs to the volcanogenic massive sulfide class of deposits, situated within the late Paleozoic-aged Rudny Altai metallurgical belt. Over millions of years, intensive surface weathering formed an exceptionally deep, complex oxidation zone that concentrated vast quantities of secondary native copper, cuprite, marshite, and iodargyrite within a highly altered clay and gossan matrix. Commercial development and exploration at the site intensified in the early 2000s under corporate operators like Sibir-Polymetally and the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, with a dedicated processing plant commissioned around 2006. Industrial extraction focused on this remarkably rich oxidized zone proceeded rapidly through underground and open-cast methods, exhausting the primary mineralized pockets within a relatively narrow window by the late 2000s and early 2010s before production transitioned into deeper, unoxidized primary sulfide ores.

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