Where is thorium found

Covalent radius Half of the distance between two atoms within a single covalent bond. Values are given for typical oxidation number and coordination. Electron affinity The energy released when an electron is added to the neutral atom and a negative ion is formed. Electronegativity Pauling scale The tendency of an atom to attract electrons towards itself, expressed on a relative scale.

First ionisation energy The minimum energy required to remove an electron from a neutral atom in its ground state. The oxidation state of an atom is a measure of the degree of oxidation of an atom. It is defined as being the charge that an atom would have if all bonds were ionic. Uncombined elements have an oxidation state of 0. The sum of the oxidation states within a compound or ion must equal the overall charge.

Data for this section been provided by the British Geological Survey. An integrated supply risk index from 1 very low risk to 10 very high risk. This is calculated by combining the scores for crustal abundance, reserve distribution, production concentration, substitutability, recycling rate and political stability scores.

The percentage of a commodity which is recycled. A higher recycling rate may reduce risk to supply. The availability of suitable substitutes for a given commodity. The percentage of an element produced in the top producing country.

The higher the value, the larger risk there is to supply. The percentage of the world reserves located in the country with the largest reserves. A percentile rank for the political stability of the top producing country, derived from World Bank governance indicators.

A percentile rank for the political stability of the country with the largest reserves, derived from World Bank governance indicators. Specific heat capacity is the amount of energy needed to change the temperature of a kilogram of a substance by 1 K. A measure of the stiffness of a substance. It provides a measure of how difficult it is to extend a material, with a value given by the ratio of tensile strength to tensile strain.

A measure of how difficult it is to deform a material. It is given by the ratio of the shear stress to the shear strain. A measure of how difficult it is to compress a substance.

It is given by the ratio of the pressure on a body to the fractional decrease in volume. A measure of the propensity of a substance to evaporate. It is defined as the equilibrium pressure exerted by the gas produced above a substance in a closed system.

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Jump to main content. Periodic Table. Glossary Allotropes Some elements exist in several different structural forms, called allotropes. Glossary Group A vertical column in the periodic table. Fact box. Glossary Image explanation Murray Robertson is the artist behind the images which make up Visual Elements. Appearance The description of the element in its natural form.

Biological role The role of the element in humans, animals and plants. Natural abundance Where the element is most commonly found in nature, and how it is sourced commercially. Uses and properties. Image explanation. The imagery used here is that associated with Thor, the Norse god connected with thunder. A large variety of other minerals contain minor amounts of thorium e.

Thorianite, thorite, and uranothorite are the only true thorium minerals, but they are not recently recovered. Some resources of these minerals are coupled with quartz-pebble conglomerates in Canada Elliot Lake region and South Africa Witwatersrand. World thorium resources in terms of the genetic types of ore deposits are displayed in Table 1 [ 9 ].

World thorium resources in terms of the deposit types [ 9 ]. The main recently available resources of thorium are coupled with monazite-enriched placer deposits in alluvial or marine sediments occurring mainly in Australia, India, Brazil, Venezuela, the USA, and Egypt. The main minerals, which are mined on these placer deposits, are ilmenite, rutile, zircon, and cassiterite.

Associated minerals, which are rarely of economic significance, can include garnet and kyanite. Monazite, when also extracted, represents only an accidental product. Placer deposits are found where water waves have concentrated heavy mineral grains on a sea beaches.

These deposits may occur in both modern and ancient shorelines. Many of the heavy mineral sand deposits are concentrated by wave action in both parallel and transgressive dunes. The placer deposits in Australia are mined for their ilmenite, rutile, and zircon content.

The monazite content in heavy mineral concentrates varied from 0. Present-day shoreline deposits are evolved on the east coast in the SE Queensland.

The most important placer sand deposits are coupled with the Tertiary fossil shoreline deposits in the Murray Basin, in the southwest Australia. Monazite grades in this deposits are around 1—1. Although monazite occurs associated with ilmenite and other heavy minerals in beach sands, skirting the entire Peninsular India, its economic concentration is confined to only some areas with suitable physiographic conditions.

The west coast placers are essentially beach or barrier deposits with development of dunes evolved on dry months. On the other hand, the east coasts deposits consist of extensive dunes fringing the coasts. The beach sands of Chavara bar Kerala on the West coast contain 73 vol. The east coast beach placers and dunes are low grade with 8—20 vol. The most important placer deposit on the East coast is the Chatrapur deposit Orissa with about 20 vol.

In the Malaysian deposits, monazite is associated with columbite, xenotime, and cassiterite. The cassiterite placers at Trengganu contain as much as 58 vol. In Sri Lanka, the largest placer deposit near Pulmoddai contains 3 million tons of sand with 0. In Brazil, monazite occurs associated with ilmenite and zircon in placer deposits evolved along the eastern and south-eastern Atlantic coast. In Burma, placer deposits occur in the southern Shan states.

Weathering of quartz veins and pegmatite dykes injected into the granites derives considerable quantities of cassiterite and wolframite occurring in the placers. In the USA, alluvial deposits of monazite are known to occur in the intermountain valleys of Idaho, the Carolina Piedmont of North and South Carolina, and the beach deposits of north-eastern Florida to south-eastern Georgia.

The three monazite placer districts, namely the North and South Carolina stream deposits, Idaho stream deposits, and Florida-Georgia beaches, are the largest volume known alluvial thorium deposits in the USA. The modern and raised Pleistocene and Pliocene beach deposits of north-eastern Florida and south-eastern Georgia host low-grade but persistent concentrations of thorium.

Heavy minerals constitute a small part of the beach sands. The most abundant heavy mineral in this beach deposits is ilmenite, in many places forming more than 50 vol. Monazite forms a minor part of the heavy-mineral fraction, usually less than 1 vol. The beach placer deposits of this region contain total reserves of about 14, tons of ThO 2 , which occur in , tons of monazite.

These placer deposits were mined primarily for ilmenite and rutile. Mining ceased in this area in late since increasing environmental regulations made mining operations more costly [ 11 ].

The ore bodies constituting quartz-pebble conglomerates are represented in particular by the Blind River-Elliot Lake deposits in Ontario, Canada and the Witwatersrand deposits in South Africa. These ore bodies occur mainly in pyrite-bearing oligomictic conglomerates. In the Blind River-Elliot Lake deposits, thorium together with uranium occurs mainly in a brannerite-uraninite-monazite mineral assemblage.

Principal ore minerals are uraninite, brannerite, and monazite, with minor coffinite, uranothorite, xenotime, and gummite. Uraninite is partly enriched in thorium with average content of 6. The Witwatersrand reefs are not only rich in gold but also represent significant uranium deposit. The principal uranium minerals are uraninite and lesser uranothorite, brannerite, and coffinite. Uraninite from this deposit is enriched in thorium average 3. Carbonatites, which recently represented the most important source of REE, are also considered as potential source of thorium.

The most carbonatites are actually polygenetic and show evidence of hydrothermal and metasomatic reworking. For example, uranium has thirty-seven different isotopes, including uranium and uranium Thorium is used to make ceramics, welding rods, camera and telescope lenses, fire brick, heat resistant paint and metals used in the aerospace industry, as well as in nuclear reactions.

Thorium has the potential to be used as a fuel for generating nuclear energy. Since thorium is naturally present in the environment, people are exposed to tiny amounts in air, food and water.

The amounts are usually very small and pose little health hazard. Most people are not exposed to dangerous levels of thorium. However, people who live near thorium mining areas or near certain legacy industrial facilities may have increased exposure to thorium. Occasionally, household items may be found with thorium in them, such as some older ceramic wares in which uranium and thorium were used in the glaze. At that time, weapons-grade plutonium, as well as uranium, was a hot commodity due to the Cold War.

Thorium itself is not used for nuclear fuel, but it is used to create the artificial uranium isotope uranium, according to the NASA report. Thorium first absorbs a neutron, creating thorium, which decays to protactium over the course of about four hours. Protactium slowly decays to uranium over the course of about ten months. Uranium is then used in nuclear reactors as fuel.