EstablishedRecovered alongside copper, lead and zinc rather than on its own.
A property of a dataset or model, shown here for context — not an observation about this record.
Silver is carried in both USGS deposit compilations Lithoen reads as a grade column beside the principal metals — copper and molybdenum in the porphyry file, zinc and lead in the sediment-hosted file. The porphyry metadata says a zero grade means the value was unavailable, "always for byproducts", which is how that compilation treats silver. The commodity is distinct from the element: silver the element is defined by having 47 protons; silver the commodity is defined by being sought and sold.
- precision note: In both files a silver grade of zero means the value was unavailable, so the absence of a silver figure says nothing about the absence of silver.
- precision note: Narrowed in Phase 6. An earlier version asserted that both databases record silver in grams per tonne and that silver is rarely the reason a deposit is worked. Neither followed from the cited evidence: the unit was never stated in any record Lithoen holds, the second was a generalisation no source made, and one of the two citations was the sediment-hosted deposit-type codeset, which says nothing about silver. What the evidence does establish is the compilation's own treatment of byproduct grades, and that is what this version says.
- generality: DATASET_PROPERTY
Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source
Evidence: Singer 2008 Primary authority