This description provides an overview of Australia's role as the world's largest producer of tantalum. Tantalum is a rare, hard, blue-gray metal that is highly resistant to corrosion and is used in a variety of industrial and consumer products. Australia is the leading producer of this valuable
Tantalum is a chemical element; it has symbol Ta and atomic number 73. It is named after Tantalus, a figure in Greek mythology. Tantalum is a very hard, ductile, lustrous, blue-gray transition metal that is highly corrosion-resistant. It is part of the refractory metals group, which are widely used as components of strong high-melting-point alloys. It is a group 5 element, along with vanadium and niobium, and it always occurs in geologic sources together with the chemically similar niobium, mainly in the mineral groups tantalite and columbite (coltan).