Like pitchblende, chalcolite is a mineral often found in lead mines. Pitchblende is a mineral rich in uranium, that was used in the 19th Century to add colour to Bohemian crystals. Uranium is a rare mineral (present in 3 parts per million on the Earth’s crust). Marie Curie carried out these measurements and discovered that thorium also emits these ‘Becquerel rays’, and that uranium minerals such as pitchblende and chalcolite have infinitely more intense emissions that pure uranium. She measured their ability to electrify the air surrounding them with a piezoelectric quartz electrometer invented by Pierre and Jacques Curie, capable of measuring very low values of electric intensity. In November 1897, Marie Curie decided to conduct systematic research on the ‘uranic rays’ found in a number of elements, compounds and minerals. Pierre Curie died in 1906 as the result of a tragic road accident. He abandoned his own research to work with Marie Curie on the then unknown elements responsible for the Becquerel rays. Pierre Curie was already renowned for his work on piezoelectricity, the symmetry of crystals, and magnetism. Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898, in the ‘discovery hangar’ at the Ecole de Physique et Chimie Industrielles then situated at 42 rue Lhomond in Paris.
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