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The content of the individual rare-earth elements varies considerably from mineral to mineral and from deposit to deposit. The minerals and ores are generally classified as “light” or “heavy”; in the former group most of the elements present are the light-atomic-weight elements (i.e., lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, and europium), whereas most of the elements in the latter group are the heavy-atomic-weight elements (i.e., gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium, plus yttrium, which is considered to be a member of the heavy group because it is found in the ores with the heavy lanthanides). The geochemistry of ...(100 of 11935 words)