History
Gadolinium is named from the mineral gadolinite, in turn named for Finnish chemist and geologist Johan Gadolin. In 1880, Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac observed spectroscopic lines due to gadolinium in samples of gadolinite (which actually contains relatively little gadolinium, but enough to show a spectrum), and in the separate mineral cerite. The latter mineral proved to contain far more of the element with the new spectral line, and Galissard de Marignac eventually separated a mineral oxide from cerite which he realized was the oxide of this new element. He named the oxide "gadolinia." Because he realized that "gadolinia" was the oxide of a new element, he is credited with discovery of gadolinium. French chemist Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran actually carried out the separation of gadolinium metal from gadolinia, in 1886.
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