Cobalt occurs in the mineral cobaltite, smaltite, and erythrite, and is often associated with nickel, silver, lead, copper, and iron ores, from which it is most frequently obtained as a by-product. It is also present in meteorites. Important ore deposits are found in Zaire, Morocco, and Canada. The U.S. Geological Survey has announced that the bottom of the north central Pacific Ocean may have cobalt-rich deposits at relatively shallow depths in water close to the the Hawaiian Islands and other U.S. Pacific territories.
Cobalt is a brittle, hard metal, closely resembling iron and nickel in appearance.
It has a metallic permeability of about two thirds that of iron. Cobalt tends to exist as a mixture of two allotropes over a wide temperature range. The transformation is sluggish and accounts in part for the wide variation in reported data on physical properties of cobalt. It is alloyed with iron, nickel and other metals to make Alnico, an alloy of unusual magnetic strength with many important uses. Cobalt is also used in other magnetic steels and stainless steels, and in alloys used in jet turbines and gas turbine generators.