Osmiridium is very rare, but it can be found in mines of other platinum group metals...
It can be isolated by adding a piece to aqua regia, which has the ability to dissolve gold and platinum but not osmiridium. It occurs naturally as small, extremely hard, flat metallic grains with hexagonal crystal structure.
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Abnormally high amounts of iridium have been found in rocks dating to the K-T boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods (65 million years ago). This has led to a widely held view that an iridium-containing comet struck the Earth at that time, which led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other forms of life.
I have some Osmium and Iridium lying around. They are both about 40x rarer than gold in the Earth's crust. Gold is for pikers and scrooges.
It can be isolated by adding a piece to aqua regia, which has the ability to dissolve gold and platinum but not osmiridium. It occurs naturally as small, extremely hard, flat metallic grains with hexagonal crystal structure.
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Abnormally high amounts of iridium have been found in rocks dating to the K-T boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods (65 million years ago). This has led to a widely held view that an iridium-containing comet struck the Earth at that time, which led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other forms of life.
I have some Osmium and Iridium lying around. They are both about 40x rarer than gold in the Earth's crust. Gold is for pikers and scrooges.
I'm definitely thinking jewelry.
ReplyDeleteSomething relatively unknown, which gives it the advantage of being the next big thing. How hard is it to work? Are there industrial applications which might give a clue to workability from a craft standpoint?