Native metal

[1][2] Metals that can be found as native deposits singly or in alloys include antimony, arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, indium, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, niobium, rhenium, tantalum, tellurium, tin, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, and zinc, as well as the gold group (gold, copper, lead, aluminium,[3] mercury, silver) and the platinum group (platinum, iridium, osmium, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium).

It is sometimes found alloyed with silver and/or other metals, but true gold compound minerals are uncommon, mainly a handful of selenides and tellurides.

This society existed around Lake Superior, where they found sources of native copper and mined them between 6000 and 3000 BC.

[9] Copper would have been especially useful to ancient humans as it was much stronger than gold, hard enough to be made into useful items such as fishhooks and woodworking tools, but still soft enough to be easily shaped, unlike meteoric iron.

Telluric iron (Earth born) is very rare, with only one major deposit known in the world, located on or near Disko Island in Greenland.

[10][11] Native nickel has been described in serpentinite due to hydrothermal alteration of ultramafic rocks in New Caledonia and elsewhere.

[12][13] Metallic cobalt has been reported in the Canadian Lorraine Mine, Cobalt-Gowganda region, the Timiskaming District, Ontario, Canada, and in the Aidyrlya gold deposit in Orenburgskaya Oblast of the Southern Urals.

[15] Native molybdenum has been found in lunar regolith and in the Koryakskii volcano in Kamchatka Oblast of Russia.

[citation needed] Native lead[17] is quite rare but somewhat more widespread, as are tin,[18] mercury,[19] arsenic,[20] antimony,[21] and bismuth.