Period 6 element between barium and hafnium, and radium and rutherfordium, respectively. This convention is entirely a matter of aesthetics and formatting practicality; a rarely used wide-formatted periodic table inserts the lanthanide and actinide series in their proper places, as parts of the table's sixth and seventh rows (periods). Lanthanum is a chemical element with the symbol La and atomic number 57. It is the first element in the lanthanide series. It is a soft, ductile, silvery-white metal that tarnishes rapidly when exposed to air and is soft enough to be cut with a knife. It is the eponym of the lanthanide series,
Monoisotopic element primordially which are not monoisotopic because the naturally occurring nuclide is radioactive, and thus the element has no stable isotopes at all. For an element to be monoisotopic, it must have one stable nuclide. Non-mononuclidic elements are marked with an asterisk, and the long-lived primordial radioisotope given. In two notable cases (indium and rhenium), the highest abundance naturally occurring isotope is the mildly radioactive one, and in the case of europium, nearly half of it is. Monoisotopic element A monoisotopic element is one of 26 chemical elements which have only a single stable isotope (nuclide). A list is given in