Arizona copper production since 1874

Arizona has produced 62.8 million tons or 125.6 billion pounds of copper during 1874-2010 per USGS, USBM, ADMMR, and AZGS publications, according to figures compiled by Nyal Niemuth in the AZGS Phoenix branch office.   About half of that was produced since 1978. 

World production through 2007 is reported by the USGS as 1.23 trillion pounds; 1.1 trillion pounds of that total is still in use because copper's recycling rate is higher than that of any other engineering metal.  By my calculation, Arizona is the source of about 10% of the total world production of copper.  [Right, native copper. Credit, USGS]