An article in the local paper is discussing a new copper line in New Mexico. It states that all that is needed to identify a substance is the mass and the volume of a sample, is this an accurate statement, why or why not?

No, this not the accurate statement.

Explanation:

As in article in the local paper, a new copper line is found in New Mexico. And all that is needed to identify a substance is the mass and the volume of the substance. But this is not the truth because to identify a substance we need to know about is an atomic number, atomic mass etc so that we can define it in periodic tables.