Mercury Facts
Mercury Facts
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| Interesting Mercury Facts: |
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| Mercury has been in use by ancient civilizations since before 2000BC. |
| It symbol comes from its historically used Latin name, hydrargyrum, meaning "liquid silver." |
| Tubes of mercury have been found in Egyptian tombs dating back to the early 1500s BC. |
| Civilizations as early as 500BC used mercury to create amalgams with other metals. |
| Due to ignorance of its toxic properties, both the Greeks and Romans used mercury in medical ointments and beauty products. |
| While the element bromine has a similar property at room temperature, mercury is the only metal to be a liquid under normal conditions. |
| Three other elements—caesium, gallium, and rubidium—are liquid at temperatures just above room temperature. |
| Mercury has the smallest temperature range of any metal, meaning that its freezing point (-38.8 degrees Celsius) and its boiling point (356 degrees Celsius) are the closest together. |
| The most common deposits globally that contain mercury are cinnabar deposits. |
| Mercury is exceptional in that it is a poor heat conductor, but a mild electrical conductor. |
| Due to its electron shell configuration, mercury acts very similar to the noble gases, whose solids melt at fairly low temperatures. |
| Like the noble gases, mercury forms very weak bonds due to its electron states. |
| Whereas almost all metals can form amalgams with mercury, iron is the only notable exception. |
| For this reason, mercury was stored and transported in iron flasks. |
| This propensity to form amalgams makes solid sulfur the ideal choice for cleaning up mercury spills and preventing the spread of its toxic vapors. |
| Mercury has seven stable isotopes and numerous radioisotopes. |
| One of mercury's radioactive isotopes, Hg-180, was discovered in 2010 to be able to produce a little known form of spontaneous fission. |
| Mercury is extremely rare, found in the Earth's crust at a concentration of only 0.08 parts per million. |
| Mercury has long been used in thermometers and dental fillings, and its gaseous form is used in fluorescent lights. |
| Due to health concerns, mercury's applications are slowly being replaced by less toxic materials. |
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