Physics of a metal-poor world

I've read the other answers relating to this area (and discovered to my disappointment that my great ideas have been done before... hey ho). But I'd like to get the science right.

I have a nation of humans on a planet which they have arrived at through colonisation and a little light terraforming, but which basically is habitable for them. I want usable metal to be rare, so that the metals they have brought with them are basically all they have.

I understand that stars with planets generally need to have higher metallicity, but I'm talking about usable metal deposits. The humans have lost most of the technology which brought them there and are at a broadly mediaeval-ish level of development (hindered by lack of metals but boosted by having been taught skills they might not have discovered by themselves.)

Could an earth-like planet form without accessible traces of iron, gold, tin, copper, lead etc? Might some of these be more frequent than others?

posted about 7 years ago

TheSpidermonkey‭

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