Idaho, elements

Never found free in nature, it is widely distributed in combination with minerals. Phosphate rock, which contains the mineral apatite, an impure tri-calcium phosphate, is an important source of the element. Large deposits are found in Russia, in Morocco, and in Florida, Tennessee, Utah, Idaho, and elsewhere. 

In the wetlands of Idaho, the formation of an Fe(III) precipitate (plaque) on the surface of aquatic plant roots (Typha latifolia, cat tail and Phalaris arundinacea, reed canary grass) may provide a means of attenuation and external exclusion of metals and trace elements (Hansel et al, 2002). Iron oxides were predominantly ferrihydrite with lesser amounts of goethite and minor levels of siderite and lepidocrocite. Both spatial and temporal correlations between As and Fe on the root surfaces were observed and arsenic existed as arsenate-iron hydroxide complexes (82%). 

Gough, L.P. and R.C. Severson. 1976. Impact of point source emissions from phosphate processing on the element content of plants and soils, Soda Springs, Idaho. Pages 225-233 in D.D. Hemphill (ed.). Trace Substances in Environmental Health. Vol. X, Univ. Missouri, Columbia. 

Curtin, G.C., King, H.D., Mosier, E.L 1974. Movement of elements into the atmosphere from coniferous trees in subalpine forests of Colorado and Idaho. Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 3, 245-263. 

Fermium was formally discovered in 1954 at the Nobel Institute for Physics in Stockholm. It was synthesized in 1952 in the Material Testing Reactor in Idaho, but the discovery was not announced. The new element was named in honor of Enrico Fermi. There is no commercial application of this element because its yield is in extremely minute quantities. It has been detected in debris from thermonuclear explosion. 

Rope SK, Arthur WJ, Craig TH, et al. 1988. Nutrient and trace elements in soil and desert vegetation of southern Idaho. Environ Monit Assess 10 1-24. 

Based on the demonstration of the DeHg process on wastes from the U.S. Department of Energy s (DOE s) Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and the East Tennessee Technology Park, the vendor estimated that the costs associated with treating more that 1500 kg of waste contaminated with elemental mercury would be 300/kg. This estimate did not include the disposal costs of the treated wastes (D210480, p. 172). 

Still the search continued. In 1954 several laboratories reported die isolation and study of elements 99 and lOO. A group at Berkeley gave some details of the discovery of 99 (96), and soon afterwards of 100 (97). Only minute amounts of these substances were obtained, but the elution sequences on ion-exchange resins served to identify them. Physical properties were reported from both Berkeley ( 98) and the Argonne Laboratories at Arco, Idaho (99). The authors of all those papers added notes to their reports stating that unpublished information still remained, and that no attempt should be made to prejudge questions of priority of discovery on the basis of the published papers. 

XPS will aid in understanding specifically the surface of the black deposit covering pictographs in Little Lost River Cave in Idaho. This work will complement other bulk analyses carried out with pyrolysis-GC-MS and thermally assisted hydrolysis /methylation (THM)-GC-MS (75). The objectives of this project were to use XPS to qualitatively determine the surface elemental composition of the black residue semiquantitatively characterize the surface, for comparison with other surface-related materials and examine the relationship between the chemistry and depth by using Ar+ sputtering. This, then, will aid in validating the radiocarbon date obtained through plasma-chemical oxidation and accelerator mass spectrometry by Steelman et al. (5). 

Harrington, J.M., Laforce, M.J., Rember, W.C. et al. (1998) Phase associations and mobilization of iron and trace elements in Coeur d Alene Lake, Idaho. Environmental Science and Technology, 32(5), 650-56. 

Maret, T.R. and Skinner K.D. (2000) Concentrations of Selected Trace Elements in Fish Tissue and Streambed Sediment in the Clark Fork-Pend Oreille and Spokane River Basins, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, 1998 U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 00-4159, U.S. Geological Survey, Boise, ID. 

Rabbi, F. (1994) Trace Element Geochemistry of Bottom Sediments and Waters from the Lateral Lakes ofCoeur d Alene River, Kootenai County, North Idaho. Dissertation, University of Idaho, Moscow. 

The domestic production capacity of elemental phosphorus in 1992 was 294,000 tons (SRI 1992). The demand for elemental phosphorus is expected to decrease (1-2%) during this decade (CMR 1991). The three companies that presently manufacture elemental phosphorus in the United States for sale or distribution are FMC Corp., Pocatello, Idaho Monsanto Co.,... 

It is an interesting fact that the two elements most necessary in the maintenance of soil fertility are the related elements nitrogen and phosphorus, which occupy adjacent positions in Group V of the periodic table. Phosphorus occurs in nature only in the combined form, chiefly as the mineral phosphorite [Ca3P04)2]. Impure calcium phosphate, known as phosphate rock, is mined extensively in Tennessee, Florida, Montana, and Idaho. Large deposits of this mineral are also found in Morocco and Tunisia in North Africa. 

Americium was isolated first from plutonium, then from lanthanum and other impurities, by a combination of precipitation, solvent extraction, and ion exchange processes. Parallel with the separation, a vigorous program of research began. Beginning in 1950, a series of publications (1-24) on americium put into the world literature much of the classic chemistry of americium, including discussion of the hexavalent state, the soluble tetravalent state, oxidation potentials, disproportionation, the crystal structure(s) of the metal, and many compounds of americium. In particular, use of peroxydisulfate or ozone to oxidize americium to the (V) or (VI) states still provides the basis for americium removal from other elements. Irradiation of americium, first at Chalk River (Ontario, Canada) and later at the Materials Testing Reactor (Idaho), yielded curium for study. Indeed, the oxidation of americium and its separation from curium provided the clue utilized by others in a patented process for separation of americium from the rare earths. 

UNEX [UNiversal EXtractant] A process for removing all the major radioactive elements from nuclear processing liquors in one step, using a mixture of complex extractants. Developed from 1994 by an international team from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (United States) and the Khlopin Radium Institute (Russia). 

Molybdenum never occurs free in nature. Instead, it is always part of a compound. In addition to molybdenite, it occurs commonly as the mineral wulfenite (PbMo04). Its abundance in Earth s crust is estimated to be about 1 to 1.5 parts per million. That makes it about as common as tungsten and many of the rare earth (lanthanoid) elements. In 2008, the largest producers of molybdenum in the world included the United States, China, Chile, Peru, and Canada. In the United States, molybdenum ores were found primarily in Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, and New Mexico. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the value of the molybdenum from U.S. mines was 4.5 billion that year. 

Another more sensitive way to detect a natural reactor is to look for fission products such as ruthenium, palladium, or tellurium which are rare elements in the earth s crust. As a result of preliminary experiments conducted at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory ruthenium from spontaneous fission of 238U has been detected in a natural uranium ore, thus illustrating the sensitivity of the method and also the possibility of using ruthenium to uranium ratios to date uranium ores. The burn-up of... 

A modification of the Redox process, the U-hexone process, was used at the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant of the U.S. AEC, to recover highly enriched uranium from U-A1 alloy fuel elements irradiated in the Materials Testing Reactor. The aluminum nitrate needed as salting agent was provided when the fuel was dissolved in nitric acid. The plutonium content of the fuel was too low to warrant recovery. Plutonium was made trivalent and inextractable before solvent extraction and thus routed to the aqueous high-level waste. 

Another example of the utility of mapping the spatial distribution of trace elements and their association with other elements or phases comes from a recent X-ray fluorescence microtomography study of the spatial distribution of Pb, Fe, Mn, Zn, and As on and within the roots of Phalaris arundinacea, a common aquatic plant from a mine waste impacted wetland in the Coeur d Alene Basin of northern Idaho (Hansel et al. 

Taeker RC, Stormer JC, Jr. (1989) A thermodynamic model for apatite solid solutiorts, applieable to high-temperature geologie problems. Am Mineral 74 877-888 Tepper JH, Kuehner SM (1999) Complex zoning in apatite from the Idaho Bathohth a reeord of magma mixing and intracrystalline traee element diffusion. Am Mineral 84 581-595... 

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