alkaline earth metal

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Introduction

A series of elements comprising Group 2 (column 2) of the periodic table:

silver colored, soft metals
react readily with halogens to form ionic salts
react with water (not as rapidly as the alkali metals) to form strongly alkaline hydroxides
- magnesium reacts only with steam
- calcium reacts with hot water
- beryllium does not react with water or steam, & its halides are covalent.
alkaline earth metals have 2 electrons in their valence shell, thus a tendency lose two electrons to form divalent cations