Nephelinite (a source of aluminum), zirconium, and columbium are also mined; the aluminum is smelted on the peninsula and at Kandalaksha.
Unocal engaged in the worldwide exploration, production, transportation, and marketing of crude oil and natural gas; the manufacture and sale of petroleum products, chemicals, and fertilizers; the mining, processing, and sale of such elements as molybdenum, columbium, rare earths, and uranium; the mining and retorting of oil shales; and the development of geothermal power.
Tantalum was soon identified with niobium (then called columbium), but in 1844 the German chemist Heinrich Rose demonstrated their distinct characters.
Since Hatchett's mineral sample came from New England, he named it columbium (Cb), after Columbia, another name for America.
Formerly called columbium, niobium was first recognized in columbite and was originally named after the mineral.
Various elements used in industry, such as beryllium, niobium (columbium), tantalum, thorium, lithium, rare-earth metals, and mica, are extracted in South America.
Niobium was later proved to be the same element as columbium, and niobium was accepted as the official name by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in 1950.
Niobium was first discovered (1801) in an ore sample from Connecticut by the English chemist Charles Hatchett, who called the element columbium in honour of the country of its origin, Columbia being a synonym for the United States.
After considerable controversy it was decided that columbium and niobium were the same element.
Eventually international agreement (about 1950) was reached to adopt the name niobium, though columbium persisted in the U.S. metallurgical industry.
He next joined Bell Labs, where he first worked on electrical storage experiments involving elements like tantalum and niobium, then called columbium.
