Americium (Am) Traditional Cache
Catzilla: making room for a new cache.
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This cache is located on Cache Owner's property. Feel free to park in the driveway or right in front of the house. Please be gentle on your surroundings. Container holding cache opens from the back by a CLIP. PLEASE.....Clip it closed when done, Thanks!
I recommend that you do NOT look for this cache late at night (after 10pm) because the police do patrol this area once in a while and they may stop you to ask what you are doing.
This cache was hidden to help fulfill the requirements for Boreal Walker's
Periodic Table of Elements Challenge
GC2P5TJ
Americium (ˌæməˈrɪsiəm/ AM-ə-RIS-ee-əm) is a transuranic radioactive chemical element that has the symbol Am and atomic number 95. This transuranic element of the actinide series is located in the periodic table below the lanthanide element europium, and thus by analogy was named after another continent, America.
Americium was first produced in 1944 by the group of Glenn T. Seaborg at the University of California, Berkeley. Although it is the third element in the transuranic series, it was discovered fourth, after the heavier curium. The discovery was kept secret and only released to the public in November 1945. Most americium is produced by bombarding uranium or plutonium with alpha particles in nuclear reactors – one tonne of spent nuclear fuel contains about 100 grams of americium. It is widely used in commercial ionization chamber smoke detectors, as well as in neutron sources and industrial gauges. Several unusual applications, such as a nuclear battery or fuel for space ships with nuclear propulsion, have been proposed for the isotope 242mAm, but they are as yet hindered by the scarcity and high price of this nuclear isomer.
Americium is a relatively soft radioactive metal with silvery appearance. Its most common isotopes are 241Am and 243Am. In chemical compounds, they usually assume the oxidation state +3, especially in solutions. Several other oxidation states are known, which range from +2 to +7 and can be identified by their characteristic optical absorption spectra. The crystal lattice of solid americium and its compounds contains intrinsic defects, which are induced by self-irradiation with alpha particles and accumulate with time; this results in a drift of some material properties.
Physical properties
In the periodic table, americium is located right to plutonium, left to curium, and below the lanthanide europium, with which it shares many similarities in physical and chemical properties. Americium is a highly radioactive element. When freshly prepared, it has a silvery-white metallic lustre, but then slowly tarnishes in air. With a density of 12 g/cm3, americium is lighter than both curium (13.52 g/cm3) and plutonium (19.8 g/cm3); but is heavier than europium (5.264 g/cm3)—mostly because of its higher atomic mass. Americium is relatively soft and easily deformable and has a significantly lower bulk modulus than the actinides before it: Th, Pa, U, Np and Pu. Its melting point of 1173 °C is significantly higher than that of plutonium (639 °C) and europium (826 °C), but lower than for curium (1340 °C).
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Abg sbe gur oveqf.