Group 12 element have zinc in its active site. In 1817, cadmium was discovered in Germany as an impurity in zinc carbonate minerals (calamine) by Friedrich Stromeyer and Karl Samuel Leberecht Hermann. It was named after the Latin "cadmia" for "calamine", a cadmium-bearing mixture of minerals, which was in turn named after the Greek mythological character, Κάδμος Cadmus, the founder of Thebes. Stromeyer eventually isolated cadmium metal by roasting and reduction of the sulfide. In 1927, the International Conference on Weights and Measures redefined the meter in terms of a red cadmium spectral line (1 m = 1,553,164.13 wavelengths). This definition has since
Group 3 element 10,000 USD/kg, or about one-fourth that of gold. Lanthanum is much more common, being the second most abundant rare earth, and in addition to monazite can also be extracted economically from bastnäsite. The most available element in group 3 is yttrium, with annual production of 8,900 tonnes in 2010. Yttrium is mostly produced as oxide, by a single country, China (99%). Lutetium and scandium are also mostly obtained as oxides, and their annual production by 2001 was about 10 and 2 tonnes, respectively. Group 3 elements are mined only as a byproduct from the extraction of other elements. The metallic