Abstract
This chapter explains what the rare earth elements are, where and when they were discovered, and by whom. The name of each element is explained (as the elemental names are rather exotic), the misleading name for these metals, which suggests that they are rare (which they are not), is clarified, and the fact that they are not earth metals is established. The alkaline earth metals constitute group IIA in the periodic system, consisting of Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, and Ra; the rare earth elements are transition metals (group IIIB).
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- 1.
Born: Åbo [now Turku], Finland, 5 June 1760; died: Wirmo, Finland, 15 August 1852.
- 2.
Gadolinite is a silicate with the formula (Ce,La,Nd,Y)2FeBe2Si2O10. Reference: Mindat.org.
- 3.
Ytterby: pronounce the “y” as the “e” in “to be”, and the “e”, as the “e” in “the”. The last syllable should be stressed.
- 4.
Abundance: The abundance of a chemical element measures how relatively common (or rare) the element is, or how much of the element is present in a given environment by comparison to all other elements. Crustal abundance of an element is the estimate of the average concentration of that element in the continental crust.
- 5.
Gadolinite is currently differentiated in Gadolinite-(Ce) and Gadolinite-(Y), according to the most commonly occurring REE in the mineral. See also Mindat.org.
- 6.
The names were originally Praseodidymium and Neodidymium. The syllable di was later skipped (Gupta and Krishnamurthy 2005).
References
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Voncken, J.H.L. (2016). The Rare Earth Elements—A Special Group of Metals. In: The Rare Earth Elements. SpringerBriefs in Earth Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26809-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26809-5_1
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