People/scientist

Marie Curie

Marie Curie (1867–1934), scientist, from Poland. Linked to uranium.

The lucky break

Found that pitchblende was more radioactive than its uranium content explained, leading to polonium and radium.1,2

The downfall

Lost her husband Pierre in 1906.1,2

Legacy

She used the residue left after uranium salts were extracted from St Joachimsthal pitchblende as raw material. Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911.1,2

Story cards

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Where next

Mines

Worked atJachymov minesHer radium came from the waste of a Bohemian silver and uranium mine.2

Sources

  1. Marie Curie Biographical (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911) Nobel Foundation
  2. Marie Curie, Nobel Lecture 1911 (Radium and the new concepts in chemistry) Nobel Foundation

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Malachite on cobaltocalcite, Musonoi by Ji-Elle, CC BY-SA 3.0. Pictures: The laboratories of Marie and Pierre Curie, Paris: room where experiments on uranium ore took place. Photograph, ca. 1900., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0).