Kragerø
Kragerø () is a town and municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional regions of Grenland and the smaller Vestmar. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Kragerø. The city of Kragerà ...
– 17 June 1893, in
Morgedal
Morgedal is a village in the municipality of Kviteseid, Telemark, Norway. The village gas been described as the "cradle of skiing".
Morgedal, Norway is a village whose most famous residents were Sondre Norheim, known to be the father of modern sk ...
) was a
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
mineralogist
Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proce ...
and
geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...
.
Life
After graduating in minearology from the
University of Christiania
The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
in 1846, Dahll worked for private mining companies. He found
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when ...
on the island of
Andøya
Andøya is the northernmost island in the Vesterålen archipelago, situated about inside the Arctic circle. Andøya is located in Andøy Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. The main population centres on the island include the villages of ...
Bjørnevatn
Bjørnevatn is a village in Sør-Varanger Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The village lies about south of the town of Kirkenes and about west of the Norway-Russia border. The village has a couple of suburbs including Hesseng ...
and in 1867 Dahll discovered
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
from the
Tana Tana may refer to:
Places
Africa
* Lake Tana, a lake in Ethiopia (and a source of the Nile River)
* Tana Qirqos, an island in the eastern part of Lake Tana in Ethiopia, near the mouth of the Gumara River
* Tana River County, a county of Coast P ...
and
Anarjohka
Anarjohka ( se, Anárjohka, no, Anarjokka or ''Anarjohka'', fi, Inarijoki, sv, Enare älv) is a tributary of Tana River. It is about long, with a drainage area of about .1870 gold rush in the Finnish Lapland. Since 1858 Dahll and
Theodor Kjerulf
Theodor Kjerulf (30 March 182525 October 1888) was a Norwegian geologist and professor at the University of Oslo. He also served as director of the Norwegian Geological Survey.
Biography
He was born in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway. He was th ...
led the first
geological survey of Norway
Geological Survey of Norway ( no, Norges geologiske undersøkelse), abbreviation: ''NGU'', is a Norwegian government agency responsible for geologic mapping and research. The agency is located in Trondheim with an office in Tromsø, with about ...
.Fontani, Marco & Costa, Mariagrazia & Oma, Mary Virginia: ″The Lost Elements: The Periodic Table's Shadow Side″, p. 136. Oxford University Press, 2014. Google Books /ref>
In 1879 Dahll collected samples of
nickel arsenide
Nickeline or niccolite is a mineral consisting primarily of nickel arsenide (NiAs). The naturally-occurring mineral contains roughly 43.9% nickel and 56.1% arsenic by mass, but composition of the mineral may vary slightly.
Small quantities of ...
and
gersdorffite
Gersdorffite is a nickel arsenic sulfide mineral with formula NiAsS. It crystallizes in the isometric system showing diploidal symmetry. It occurs as euhedral to massive opaque, metallic grey-black to silver white forms. Gersdorffite belongs to ...
on the island of Oterøya in his birthplace Kragerø. Dahll found out that the rocks contained previously unknown element which he named Norwegium. The phosphate mineral dahllite (hydroxylapatite) is named after Tellef Dahll and his brother, the mineralogist Johann Dahll.Dahllite Medical Definition Mirriam-Webster Medical Dictionary. Retrieved 1 October 2015.