page_title: Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran
section_title: Samarium
hierarchical_section_title: Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran / Research / Samarium
caption_attribution_description: English: Approximately 6 grams of oxidized samarium shards from a larger piece.
context_page_description: Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, also called François Lecoq de Boisbaudran, was a French chemist known for his discoveries of the chemical elements gallium, samarium and dysprosium.
  He developed methods for separation and purification of the rare earth elements and was one of the pioneers of the science of spectroscopy.
context_section_description: Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered samarium in 1879
  after first isolating samarium oxide. He identified the presence of a new element by using spectroscopy to observe its characteristic sharp optical absorption lines.
  He named his new element "samaria" after the mineral samarskite from which it was isolated. The mineral itself was earlier named for a Russian mine official, Colonel Vassili Samarsky-Bykhovets. The name was eventually standardized to "samarium" to match other element names, and "samaria" now refers to the oxide of samarium, not the pure element.
caption: Samarium
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