Native metal brass, bronze, pewter, German silver, osmiridium, electrum, white gold, and silver-mercury and gold-mercury amalgam. Only gold, silver, copper and the platinum metals occur in nature in large amounts. Over geological time scales, very few metals can resist natural weathering processes like oxidation, which is why generally only the less reactive metals such as gold and platinum are found as native metals. The others usually occur as isolated pockets where a natural chemical process reduces a common compound or ore of the metal, leaving the pure metal behind as small flakes or inclusions. Non-metallic elements occurring in the native state include
Thicketty Mountain Ore Pits (38CK74) Register of Historic Places in 1987. Thicketty Mountain Ore Pits (38CK74) Thicketty Mountain Ore Pits (38CK74) is a historic archaeological site located near Shady Grove Church, Cherokee County, South Carolina. The site includes iron ore pits associated with the South Carolina Manufacturing Company, a major iron manufacturing company that operated in Spartanburg County between about 1825 and about 1850. The iron ore pits or surface mines cover several forested acres along a gently sloping ridge and are generally depressions about two to three meters deep and about five to ten meters across. The pits were last operational in the 1850s.