Radium bromide the air causes this luminescence. Radium bromide is also very dangerous since the crystals occasionally explode. Helium gas evolved from alpha particles can accumulate within the crystals which cause them to weaken and rupture. Another property of radium bromide is its ability to crystallize from an aqueous solution. It forms a dihydrate, very similar to barium bromide. The chemical radium bromide is not found in nature; it is created. To extract radium from uranium or pitchblende ores, the most common practice is called the Curie method which it involves two major stages. The first stage is a chemical treatment to
Radium King Radium King The Radium King was built in 1937 to haul ore on the Mackenzie River, and her tributaries. This included uranium used in the US atom bombs of World War II. Later in her active career she hauled barges on Great Slave Lake. The "Radium King", and a sister ship, the "Radium Queen", were built in the Manseau shipyards in Montreal. They were then disassembled and the pieces were loaded on flatcars for shipment by railroad to Waterways, Alberta, which was then the northern terminus of the North American railway grid, to be reassembled and launched on the Mackenzie