Strontium is a chemical element with symbol Sr and atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, strontium is a soft silver-white or yellowish metallic element that is highly reactive chemically. The metal turns yellow when it is exposed to air. Strontium has physical and chemical properties similar to those of its two vertical neighbors, calcium and barium. It occurs naturally in the minerals celestine, strontianite, and putnisite, and is mostly mined from the first two of these. While natural strontium is stable, the synthetic 90Sr isotope, present in radioactive fallout, is radioactive and has a half-life of 28.90 years: this is one of the most dangerous components of fallout, as strontium mimics its vertical neighbor calcium and is similarly taken up by the body. Natural stable strontium, on the other hand, is not dangerous to health. Both strontium and strontianite are named after Strontian, a village in Scotland near which the mineral was discovered in 1790 by Adair Crawford and William Cruickshank; it was identified as a new element the next year from its crimson-red flame test color. Strontium was first isolated as a metal in 1808 by Humphry Davy using the then-newly discovered process of electrolysis. The production of sugar from sugar beet was in the 19th century the largest application of strontium (see strontian process). At the peak of production of television cathode ray tubes, as much as 75 percent of strontium consumption in the United States was used for the faceplate glass. With the displacement of cathode ray tubes by other display methods, consumption of strontium has dramatically declined.

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