1. The Rare Earth Elements

2. The REE and the Periodic Table1 He 2 Li 3 Be 4 B 5 C 6 N 7 O 8 F 9 10 Ne Na 11 Mg 12 Al 13 Si 14 P 15 S 16 Cl 17 Ar 18 K 19 Ca 20 Sc 21 Ti 22 V 23 Cr 24 Mn 25 Fe 26 Co 27 Ni 28 Cu 29 Zn 30 Ga 31 Ge 32 As 33 Se 34 Br 35 Kr 36 Rb 37 Sr 38 Y 39 Zr 40 Nb 41 Mo 42 Tc 43 Ru 44 Rh 45 Pd 46 Ag 47 Cd 48 In 49 Sn 50 Sb 51 Te 52 I 53 Xe 54 Cs 55 Ba 56 La 57 Hf 72 Ta 73 74 75 83 84 85 86 W Re Os 76 Ir 77 Pt 78 Au 79 Hg 80 Tl 81 Pb 82 Bi Po At Rn Fr 87 Ra 88 Ac 89 Rf
104
105 Sg
106 Bh
107 Hs
108 Mt
109 Ds
110
Uuu
111
Uub
112
Uuq
114
Light REE
Heavy REE Db Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Yb Lu 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

3. Relative Abundance of the REE in the Earth’s Crust Normalized to Primitive Mantle
LREE
HREE
HREE Y

4. The Lanthanide Contraction
Ce4+
Eu2+
REE3+
Ionic radius (Angstroms)
Y3+
Heavy
Light

5. The Oddo-Harkins Rule
Elements with odd atomic numbers are less abundant in the cosmos than elements with even atomic numbers. This leads to a saw-toothed pattern in plots of element abundance vs atomic number.
During nucleosynthesis 42He is a basic building block and thus collision of two 42He nucleii will produce 84Be and collision of a 84Be nucleus with a 42He nucleus will produce 126C and so on.

6. The Effect of Normalisation
Post-Archean
Australian Shale
REE Concentration in mg/Kg
REE Concentration normalised to chondrite
The normalisation to chondrite smoothes the saw-toothed pattern and makes it possible to observe that relative to chondrite, shales are enriched in the LREE and display a marked negative Eu anomaly.

7. The Geochemical Twins Ho and Y
REE in Sample/Chondrite
Yttrium and Holmium have the same charge 3+ and almost the same ionic radius, and pm, respectively. By contrast, the neighbours, Dy and Er have radii of and 103.0, pm, respectively. Y and Ho should therefore substitute in minerals preserving their mantle ratio of

8. A Positive Ce anomaly in Zircon
The structure of zircon favours the incorporation of the HREE, commonly due to a coupled substitution of REE3+ + P5+ for Zr4+ and Si4+. Ce3+ (115 pm) is too large to substitute into the lattice but as Ce4+ (101 pm) is very similar in size to Yb (100.8 pm)