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The platinum group (alternatively, the platinum group metals or platinum metals) is a collective name sometimes used for six metallic elements clustered together in the periodic table. These elements are all transition metals, lying in the d-block (groups 8, 9, and 10, periods 5 and 6 — in Mendeleev's original table, this area was called "Group VIII"). The six platinum group metals are ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum. They have similar physical and chemical properties, and tend to occur together in the same mineral deposits. Strictly taken, the three elements iron, cobalt and nickel in the same group have similar physical (e.g. high melting points, high density for period 4 of the periodic table) and chemical properties such as being able to be used as a catalyst, forming complex ions such as Fe(CN)64-, and the ability of nickel to absorb hydrogen (like Pd and Pt). Naturally occurring platinum and platinum-rich alloys have been known for a long time. Though the metal was used by pre-Columbian peoples, the first European reference to platinum appears in 1557 in the writings of the Italian humanist Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484-1558) as a description of a mysterious metal found in Central American mines between Darién (Panama) and Mexico ("up until now impossible to melt by any of the Spanish arts").
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