Hiro Protagonist

I wound up making a second world and spawned into a massive gavel area, but within 5 minutes I found 3 sets of surface copper. Then found forest, a ruin gave me a copper shovel and copper falx. It did take another couple of hours to find clay, but while looking I found 5 more surface copper spots. It's a great seed and definitely my new home. I'm on a huge lake with seemingly endless supply of cattails. I've seen videos on prospecting, it's a bit intimidating but I skill I will need to learn. Thanks again all.

Thanks all for the replies. After posting this I decided to just pick a direction and run. after about 20 minutes or so (i've got to learn distance better), I found some surface copper. Very excited! it was close to a vendor that sells weapons so even better. I set up a little base and got to digging. I was rather disappointed to find that it was Olivine in Peridotite which takes bronze to break. the sadness. I think I might try a new seed. With all of this very helpful information starting over will be much much easier. VS is challenging, that's a good thing.

So yes, I can pan for copper bit. I have a copper pick and hammer as advised from videos. However, I have, as yet, never once found a copper bit on the ground indicating copper below ground. My seed isn't very good (or so it feels to me). There are no trees bigger than a single log within a 5 minute run of spawn. There are no animals except a single bear guarding a small grove of trees about 5 minute away. I heard a chicken, can't find it. It's just endless fields of flowers interrupted by some lakes and sudden very tall jutting stone peaks, devoid of trees. It's very pretty, but now I have a copper pick and nothing of value to hit with it. I did see some gold in a cave but there 5 of those crawling guys in there so that's their gold. Should I start over on a new seed or is this not luck but my lack of knowledge and understanding of the game? No video I could find talks about this issue. I don't want to pan my way through the copper tier.