How to Use thorium in a Sentence

thorium

noun
  • However, any thorium present in the cave stays in place.
    — Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 20 Aug. 2025
  • The older a flowstone gets, the more thorium builds up inside it.
    — Carl Zimmer, New York Times, 22 Feb. 2018
  • But not all researchers agree that uranium-thorium dates are valid.
    — Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian, 22 Feb. 2018
  • The uranium-thorium system acts like a clock that starts when the tufa is formed.
    — Benjamin Schoville, Quartz, 4 Apr. 2021
  • Few areas on the farside, with its dearth of volcanism, have a high abundance of thorium.
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 9 Apr. 2025
  • Soil contains an average of around 6 parts per million (ppm) of thorium.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 27 Aug. 2019
  • Technology like thorium fuel is still far from ready for the market.
    — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 30 July 2020
  • For one thing, the mantles used in camp lanterns at the time contained small amounts of the radioactive element thorium.
    — Douglas Preston, The New Yorker, 10 May 2021
  • But thorium would play an important role in Rona’s later career.
    — New York Times, 28 Aug. 2019
  • By comparing the ratios of uranium and thorium present in the bone, scientists can tell its age.
    — Michael Price, Science | AAAS, 9 Apr. 2018
  • Phoenix finds mine sites where the tailings waste is free from radioactive elements such as thorium and uranium.
    — Yusuf Khan, WSJ, 20 July 2023
  • Molten salt thorium reactors, needing no water, suit inland sites.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 15 Sep. 2025
  • But a thorium plant would be different than the plants with which Americans are familiar.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 27 Aug. 2019
  • The crystal acts as a solid host that holds large numbers of thorium nuclei in place while allowing laser light to interact with them.
    — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 13 June 2026
  • In this kind of reactor, thorium fluoride dissolves in molten salt in the reactor’s core.
    — Emily Waltz, IEEE Spectrum, 30 Dec. 2024
  • But thorium couldn't produce anywhere near the energy the Orville would require.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 29 Dec. 2018
  • Searches had been made about how to poison a well and about uranium thorium fusion bombs, the search warrant affidavit said.
    — Kirk Mitchell, The Denver Post, 8 Aug. 2019
  • One lab tested the ratio of uranium to thorium in two of Misliya-1’s incisors.
    — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 25 Jan. 2018
  • The differing levels of thorium found on the crust of the moon may also mean differing levels of water stored in the mantle.
    — Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 29 Apr. 2025
  • Over the course of eons, uranium gradually breaks down into thorium.
    — New York Times, 28 Aug. 2019
  • The research team used a tiny crystal containing thorium atoms for the experiment.
    — Georgina Jedikovska, Interesting Engineering, 27 Oct. 2025
  • Helium is formed by the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium deep inside the earth’s crust.
    — Michael Braga, The Arizona Republic, 14 May 2024
  • Memmott is studying thorium salt as an energy source at a remote lab in Emery County.
    — Leia Larsen, The Salt Lake Tribune, 19 Oct. 2022
  • Helium-4 is naturally produced in the mantle through the decay of uranium and thorium, so there’s a lot of it.
    — Robin George Andrews, Scientific American, 14 May 2026
  • The problem was that scientists usually needed big chunks to find enough uranium and thorium to measure.
    — Carl Zimmer, New York Times, 22 Feb. 2018
  • Scientists also struggled to explain strange chemical deposits rich in thorium and iron found southwest of the basin.
    — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 9 May 2026
  • Unlike the uranium, the thorium isn't water-soluble and can only get into the rock via decay.
    — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 15 Dec. 2019
  • When tufa forms, uranium is ‘locked’ into the crystal structure and begins to decay to produce thorium.
    — Benjamin Schoville, Quartz, 4 Apr. 2021
  • The now-defunct company disposed of thorium waste on its property and into the Queens sewer.
    — Washington Post, 27 July 2017
  • In the core, the radioactive thorium heats the molten salt, which turns water into steam and activates a turbine to make electricity.
    — Jacopo Prisco, CNN, 3 June 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'thorium.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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