Copper ores

Copper ores [мідні руди; midni rudy]. Mineral compounds that contain copper in concentrations that can be profitably extracted. In Ukraine copper ores are found in the northwestern part of the Donets Basin and the Slovianske-Artemivske Depression (in the sandstone layers and partly in the dolomite layers of the Permian age). Smaller deposits of copper ores are found in the Azov Upland, in the Kryvyi Rih region, in the basalt region of Volhynia (Yanova Valley), and in Galician Podilia along the Dnister River. All these deposits were exploited in the past—in the Donets Basin even as late as the 1870s (see Metallurgy)—but today they have no commercial value.

  [This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]