Occurrence
Gadolinium is a constituent in many minerals such as monazite and bastnäsite, which are oxides. The metal is too reactive to exist naturally. Ironically, as noted above, the mineral gadolinite actually contains only traces of Gd. The abundance in the earth crust is about 6.2 mg/kg. The main mining areas are China, USA, Brazil, Sri Lanka, India and Australia with reserves expected to exceed one million tonnes. World production of pure gadolinium is about 400 tonnes per year.
Read more about this topic: Gadolinium
Famous quotes containing the word occurrence:
“One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)