Thorium
Thorium is a chemical element with symbol Th and atomic number 90. A radioactive actinide metal, thorium is one of only two significantly radioactive elements that still occur naturally in large quantities as a primordial element (the other being uranium). It was discovered in 1828 by the Norwegian Reverend and amateur mineralogist Morten Thrane Esmark and identified by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who named it after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.
A thorium atom has 90 protons and therefore 90 electrons, of which four are valence electrons. Thorium metal is silvery and tarnishes black when exposed to air. Thorium is weakly radioactive: all its known isotopes are unstable, with the seven naturally occurring ones (thorium-227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, and 234) having half-lives between 25.52 hours and 14.05 billion years. Thorium-232, which has 142 neutrons, is the most stable isotope of thorium and accounts for nearly all natural thorium, with the other five natural isotopes occurring only in traces: it decays very slowly through alpha decay to radium-228, starting a decay chain named the thorium series that ends at lead-208. Thorium is estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust, and is chiefly refined from monazite sands as a by-product of extracting rare earth metals.
Isotopes of thorium
Although thorium (Th), with atomic number 90, has 6 naturally occurring isotopes, none of these isotopes are stable; however, one isotope, 232Th, is relatively stable, with a half-life of 14.05 billion years, considerably longer than the age of the earth, and even slightly longer than the generally accepted age of the universe. This isotope makes up nearly all natural thorium. As such, thorium is considered to be mononuclidic. It has a characteristic terrestrial isotopic composition and thus an atomic mass can be given.
Relative atomic mass: 232.03806(2).
Thirty radioisotopes have been characterized, with the most stable (after 232Th) being 230Th with a half-life of 75,380 years, 229Th with a half-life of 7,340 years, and 228Th with a half-life of 1.92 years. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than thirty days and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than ten minutes. One isotope, 229Th, has a nuclear isomer (or metastable state) with a remarkably low excitation energy, recently measured to be 7.6 ± 0.5 eV.
Podcasts:
Thorium
ALBUMS
- Feral Creation released: 2008
- Unleashing the Demons released:
- Ocean of Blasphemy released:
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Altars Of Blood
by: ThoriumAltars Of Blood
Voices command
Distorted and sick
Brain goes numb in the poisoned air
Screwed by pigs, stripped and mutilated
Squal like pigs, as blood runs
Knife twisted in the moulding flesh
As the altars turn blood-red
The creatures, the holy trinity
Eternally torn apart
A yellow blood in jected mass
Hypocrites
So it's the vision of Gfod?
Cast the blood of the mortals and slice their guts on the holy, stinking
altars
Latest News for: thorium
Stepping beyond atomic clocks
Map Reveals Where World's Thorium Reserves Are Located by Country
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