Calamine (mineral) crystallographically quite distinct, the two minerals exhibit similar massive or botryoidal external form and are not readily distinguished without detailed chemical or physical analysis. The first person to separate the minerals was the British chemist and mineralogist James Smithson in 1803. In the mining industry the term calamine has been historically used to refer to both minerals indiscriminately. In mineralogy calamine is no longer considered a valid term. It has been replaced by smithsonite and hemimorphite in order to distinguish it from the pinkish mixture of zinc oxide (ZnO) and iron(III) oxide (FeO) used in calamine lotion. In the 16th
Bioabsorbable metallic glass numerous ternary alloys along the 350 °C isotherm of the Mg-Zn-Ca system. Ternary Ca-Mg-Zn bulk metallic glasses were also discovered in 2005. Similar to the Mg-Zn-Ca, these two amorphous alloys are both bioresorbable metallic glasses and are based on the same "Mg-Zn-Ca ternary system". The elements are displayed in order of decreasing atomic concentration. Hence, the distinction between these two metallic glasses lies in their most dominant element, namely Ca and Mg. These Ca-based bulk glassy alloys had compositions of CaMgZn, CaMgZn, and CaMgZn, where X = 0, 5 and 10; Y = 0, 5, 7.5, 10, and 15; and