Metal Country (4) Trivia Quiz

Answer: Belgium

Discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898, radium is extracted from uranium ores. At the time there were no large-scale applications for uranium, which was produced as a by-product from the Jáchymov silver mines in Austria-Hungary (now Czechia). Belgium has been one of the leading producers of radium for years, although world production in 2018 was less than 100 g (4 oz).

Its main uses have been as a radiation source such as in cancer treatment although safer sources have gradually taken over. New uses have been found in atomic, molecular, and optical physics due to some unique properties exhibited by radium.

Answer: Ghana

The name of the country Ghana comes from the time of the Wagadu, a west African empire which existed roughly between the 4th and 12th centuries. 'Ghana' was the Arab traders' term for the title given to the empire's rulers, Kaya Maghan, which translates as 'ruler of gold'. Minerals are a major export earner for Ghana and gold accounts for over 90% of that.

It was also one of Africa's top exporters of bauxite in 2020 and the world's fourth largest exporter of manganese ores in 2022.

Answer: Rwanda

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was the largest producer of tantalum in 2024. Its neighbour Rwanda came second, although how much of the Rwandan total was smuggled out of DRC is unclear. Conflict in DRC since the 1990s is partly funded through, and hence fuelled by, mining of the coltan which occurs in the DRC. Coltan is the mineral columbite-tantalite, from which niobium and tantalum are extracted.

Answer: Sweden

The discoveries started in 1794 when Carl Axel Arrhenius, a military officer and amateur geologist, found the mineral ytterbite (later named gadolinite). After more than a century of research, ten metallic elements were extracted from this mineral. The elements named after the village Ytterby are terbium, yttrium, erbium and ytterbium. Finding gadolinite in the quarry resulted in this location becoming the richest source of elemental discoveries in the world.

The image shows a moose or elk (Alces alces) which can be found in Sweden and other cooler temperate Northern Hemisphere regions.

Answer: Greece

Magnesia used to refer to a mineral used for bleaching glass, now known as pyrolusite or manganese dioxide. Just to confuse things, there was also magnesia alba, a white powder used as a cosmetic and toothpaste and which is actually magnesium carbonate. In 1808 British chemist Humphry Davy was the first to isolate magnesium from magnesia and suggested the name 'magnium' for the metal.

There are two metallic elements that owe their name to the tribe, namely magnesium and manganese. It is possible the tribe came from Magnesia ad Sipylum, which is now part of Turkey, rather than Thessaly. Coincidentally, the region of Magnesia in Thessaly is the source of the mineral known as Magnesian stone, otherwise known as lodestone or the magnet.

Answer: Italy

The Romans were far from the first to make use of concrete or lime mortars, however they are responsible for SPQR which stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus ("The Senate and People of Rome") and referred to the Roman Republic.

It was British chemist Humphry Davy (again) who was first to isolate the metal in 1808. A workable commercial process for extracting calcium took another century. Humphry Davy chose the name 'calcium' which was derived from the Latin word 'calx' for lime or limestone.

Answer: Egypt

The main problem with iron produced in ancient times was that it corroded and so archaeologists generally have little to work with. One exception is meteoric iron which is in effect an alloy. Meteoric iron beads (containing 7.5% nickel) dating from 3,500 BC were found at Gerzeh, Egypt and a meteoric iron dagger was found in Tutankhamun's 14th century BC tomb in 1922.

The dagger contained iron, cobalt and nickel in similar proportions to a meteorite named Kharga from Marsa Matruh, Egypt. The nickel content of meteoric iron is greater than that found in iron artifacts from terrestrial ores. Meteoric iron appears to have been prized by the ancient Egyptians.

The temple in the image is that of Ramesses III.

Answer: Morocco

The tagine or tajine as a method of cooking gets a mention in the 9th century "One Thousand and One Nights" story collection. The Moroccan version is a slow-cooked stew traditionally made in the two-part earthenware tagine shown in the image.

Barium is usually sourced from baryte, a barium sulphate mineral with many deposits around the world, including the large Bouznika deposit in Morocco. It is phosphates, though, which form Morocco's largest mineral export with the country holding about 75% of world reserves. Barium was another element first separated in 1808 by Humphry Davy. He used 'baryte' as a starting pointing for the name 'barium'. The main uses are for barium compounds rather than the metal itself, with baryte being important to the oil industry in drilling fluids.

Answer: Germany

Caesium was the first element discovered from the emission spectra of heated elements. German chemists Robert Bunsen (known for the Bunsen burner) and Gustav Kirchhoff used the newly developed technique of flame spectroscopy to do this. They started off by evaporating 44,000 litres (12,000 US gal) of spa water to obtain a concentrated salt solution. The bright blue lines in the emission spectrum led them to derive the name from the Latin word caesius, meaning 'bluish grey'. They followed this with the discovery of rubidium in 1861 using the same technique.

Answer: Ecuador

Taking its name from two archaeological sites, Isla del Morro in the city of Tumaco in Colombia and Isla de la Tolita in Ecuador, the culture is known mostly through its artifacts. Their artisans worked with gold and were the first known to work with platinum. The civilisation existed from around 600 BC to 200 AD. When the Spanish appeared, they treated platinum as an impurity in gold and threw it away. Its value was not appreciated until the 18th century. The name comes from the Spanish word 'platina', meaning 'little silver'.

The image shows an Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) which is a national symbol for several South American countries and is used, for example, on the Coat of Arms of Ecuador.