Michigan’s Old Copper Complex is well documented: Great Lakes peoples mined unusually pure native copper from surface veins and glacial gravels as early as about 8,000 years ago. The video claims a vast Lake Superior deposit containing trace mercury, a 40–80-foot-high copper wall and enormous prehistoric extraction. The cited archaeological sources do not verify those dimensions, the mercury assay or the claimed extraction total. The Midcontinent Rift formed about 1.1 billion years ago. 🪙
Video reports mercury in Michigan’s prehistoric native copper
Site mentioned
📍 Lake Superior
Key facts
- The Midcontinent Rift formed about 1.1 billion years ago, not 3 billion years ago.
- Archaeological sources place mining and working of Great Lakes native copper about 8,000 years ago, or roughly 6000 BCE. The specific 4500 BCE mining date is not supported by the cited results.
- Native copper occurred naturally in surface veins and glacial gravel deposits at roughly 99% purity or higher. Its purity does not imply that prehistoric miners used electrolysis.
- The cited sources do not verify a continuous 40–80-foot-high, 18-foot-thick native-copper wall in Lake Superior.
- The cited results do not independently confirm the claimed mercury assay, trailer-sized glacial fragments, or an ancient extraction total ranging from 100 million pounds to 120 million tons.
- Mercury boils at about 357°C, so it would be driven off well below 500°C.
Sources
independent.academia.edu
Linked in video description
institutefornaturalphilosophy.org
Linked in video description
Mysterious Midcontinent Rift turns out to be a ... - Geology Ingeologyin.com
... Midcontinent Rift appeared to evolve in three stages. "First, the rocks were pulled apart, forming a rift valley," Carol Stein said. "As the rift was ...
Midcontinent Rift Systemen.wikipedia.org
It formed when the continent's core, the North American craton, began to split apart … about 1.1 billion years ago. about 15–22 million years the rift failed.
Metallogeny of the midcontinent rift system of North Americasciencedirect.com
by SW Nicholson · 1992 · Cited by 70 — In the Lake Superior region, the rift cuts across Precambrian basement terranes ranging in age from ∼ 1850 Ma to more than 3500 Ma.
Tectonic Processes in the Midcontinent Rift System - Geologynature.com
The Midcontinent Rift System represents a failed continental rift that began forming ca 1.1 billion years ago as Laurentia underwent regional extension
Redrawing the Map of the Midcontinent Rift - | Earthscopeearthscope-program-2003-2018.org
The rift halted 1.1 billion years ago, but its formation shaped the continent as we know it today. The northern end of the MCR forms the basin of Lake Superior.
Old Copper Culturempm.edu
The Old Copper Complex, also known as the Old Copper Culture, refers to the items made by early inhabitants of the Great Lakes region during a period
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