Secondary concentration of the Jerome ores has proceeded along the general lines previously outlined (pp. 46-50, 202). Here again the evidence is clear that the ores were concentrated in an earlier period, in this case in pre-Cambrian times, probably during the long interval required for the base-leveling of the pre-Cambrian mountains. Since Cambrian times the deposits have been for the most part buried by later sediments. Some of the deposits are still protected by this overlying blanket and mining has not yet reached the zone of altogether primary sulphides. Others have been faulted up and again exposed by erosion; but since being uncovered, steep slopes and rapid erosion have apparently favored the scattering of the copper rather than its concentration and enrichment. In the United Verde Mine, oxidizing conditions at present prevail to the bottom of the chalcocite zone.
The very large reserves of the Katanga copper belt of the Belgian Congo are in the form of tabular masses in schistose and highly metamorphosed Paleozoic sediments. The ore bodies are roughly parallel to the bedding, but in instances follow the schistosity which cuts across the bedding. They consist dominantly of the oxide minerals, though in several ore bodies sulphides have been shown by diamond-drilling. The ores have a high content of cobalt and also carry precious metals. The origin of the deposits is not known, but has been ascribed to granitic masses intrusive into the schists.
Sedimentary copper deposits. In the later phases of the metamorphic cycle, the agencies of transportation (in solution) and sedimentary deposition have resulted in some low-grade deposits of copper sulphides in sedimentary rocks. Deposits of this type are found in the Rocky Mountain region, where they are referred to as the "Red Beds" coppers, but are of no commercial importance. Similar deposits in Germany, the Mansfield copper-bearing shales, have been worked for some time, and during the war were Germany's main source of copper. On Keweenaw Point, Michigan, deposits of native copper formed in this manner in the "Nonesuch" beds have been worked on a commercial scale. Other copper ores on Keweenaw Point are replacements of conglomerate beds between igneous flows, and are of a different origin already described (p. 200).
While much of the copper of sedimentary beds gives evidence that it was deposited from solution in cracks and as replacements of the wall rocks, often through the agency of abundant organic material in the beds, and while also comparatively little of this copper can be identified as having been deposited in detrital flakes or fragments along with the other mineral fragments, there is, nevertheless, considerable evidence that some of these deposits were formed essentially during the sedimentation of the enclosing beds and as incidents to this process. Such evidence consists of a close limitation of the copper to certain beds, its wide and uniform distribution within these beds, its absence in similar beds near at hand, the absence of evidence of feeding and escape channels of the kind which would be necessary in case the solutions were introduced long afterward, and often a minute participation of the copper minerals in the minor structures of bedding, false-bedding, and ripple-marks, which would be difficult to explain as due to secondary concentration.
The Corocoro copper deposits of Bolivia occur in beds of sandstone with no igneous rocks in the vicinity. However, they are all closely associated with a fault plane, igneous rocks occur at distances of a few miles, and the general mineralization is coextensive with the belt of igneous rocks; the deposits are therefore ascribed to a magmatic source rather than to sedimentary processes. Toward the surface the copper is in part in the form of sulphides, somewhat altered to oxide minerals, and farther down it is entirely native copper, associated with gypsum. This is the only district outside of Lake Superior where native copper has been mined on an important scale.