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Germanium is less abundant than either tin or lead, which is the heavier component metals of group 14, and it is less easily accessed because geological processes have contracted only small amounts of it into minerals, so that it tends to be widely dispersed. Germanium ores are rare. The least rare, germinate, is a copper-iron-germanium sulfide with 8% of the element, but even this is not mined. Germanium is widely distributed in ores of other metals, such as zinc, and that which is required for manufacturing purposes is recovered as a by-product from the flue-dusts of zinc smelters. World production is about 80 tons per year.
