Ytterby

Ytterby is a village on the Swedish island of Resarö, in Vaxholm Municipality in the Stockholm archipelago.

Lending its name to a famous quarry where many rare earth minerals have been discovered, the small village has been the inspiration for naming four chemical elements on the Periodic Table: yttrium (Y), ytterbium (Yb), terbium (Tb) and erbium (Er).

Three other elements also trace their origin to the Ytterby quarry: gadolinium (Gd) (named after gadolinite, which is named after Professor Johan Gadolin), holmium (Ho) (from the Latin name for Stockholm), and thulium (Tm) (Thule is an old Latin word for the Nordic countries).

See also

* Timeline of chemical elements discoveries
* Geography of Stockholm

References

* cite web
url = http://www.hembygd.se/index.asp?DocID=2785
title = Ytterby gruva
author = Blom, Carl-Hugo
publisher = Stockholms läns hembygdsförbund
date = 2006-06-18
accessdate = 2007-06-09
language = Swedish (History of the quarry.)