Period 6 element niobium, occurs in the minerals tantalite, columbite and coltan (a mix of columbite and tantalite). Tungsten, also known as wolfram, is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74. The word "tungsten" comes from the Swedish language "tung sten" directly translatable to "heavy stone", though the name is "volfram" in Swedish to distinguish it from Scheelite, in Swedish alternatively named "tungsten". A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as a metal in
Transition metal prevent d–d bonding, which again tends to differentiate them from the accepted transition metals. Mercury has a melting point of and is a liquid at room temperature. Transition metal In chemistry, the term transition metal (or transition element) has three possible meanings: English chemist Charles Bury (1890–1968) first used the word "transition" in this context in 1921, when he referred to a "transition series of elements" during the change of an inner layer of electrons (for example n=3 in the 4th row of the periodic table) from a stable group of 8 to one of 18, or from 18 to