platinum

Heavy, soft, silver-white, malleable and ductile, metallic element, atomic number 78, relative atomic mass 195.09. It is the first of a group of six metallic elements (platinum, osmium, iridium, rhodium, ruthenium, and palladium) that possess similar properties, such as resistance to tarnish, corrosion, and attack by acid, and that often occur as free metals (native metals). They often occur in natural alloys with each other, the commonest of which is osmiridium. Both pure and as an alloy, platinum is used in dentistry, jewellery, and as a catalyst.

Platinum

Town in Bethel Census Area, southwestern Alaska, USA, at the entrance to Goodnews Bay, off Kuskokwim Bay (the Bering Sea), 200 km/125 mi southwest of Bethel; population (1990) 100. Settled after a 1927 platinum strike, it attracted miners and adventurers seeking escape from the Lower 48 (the rest of continental USA) during the 1930s Depression. It remains a mining centre for platinum and iridosmine (a natural alloy of iridium and osmium).