Monazite is a reddish-brown phosphate mineral containing rare earth

Rare earth element

As defined by IUPAC, rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a set of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, specifically the fifteen lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium...

 metals. It occurs usually in small isolated crystal

Crystal

A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography...

s. There are actually at least four different kinds of monazite, depending on relative elemental composition of the mineral:

• monazite-Ce
  Cerium
  Cerium is a chemical element with the symbol Ce and atomic number 58. It is a soft, silvery, ductile metal which easily oxidizes in air. Cerium was named after the dwarf planet . Cerium is the most abundant of the rare earth elements, making up about 0.0046% of the Earth's crust by weight...
  
   (Ce, La, Pr, Nd, Th, Y)PO₄
• monazite-La
  Lanthanum
  Lanthanum is a chemical element with the symbol La and atomic number 57.Lanthanum is a silvery white metallic element that belongs to group 3 of the periodic table and is the first element of the lanthanide series. It is found in some rare-earth minerals, usually in combination with cerium and...
  
   (La, Ce, Nd, Pr)PO₄
• monazite-Nd
  Neodymium
  Neodymium is a chemical element with the symbol Nd and atomic number 60. It is a soft silvery metal that tarnishes in air. Neodymium was discovered in 1885 by the Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach. It is present in significant quantities in the ore minerals monazite and bastnäsite...
  
   (Nd, La, Ce, Pr)PO₄
• monazite-Pr
  Praseodymium
  Praseodymium is a chemical element that has the symbol Pr and atomic number 59. Praseodymium is a soft, silvery, malleable and ductile metal in the lanthanide group. It is too reactive to be found in native form, and when artificially prepared, it slowly develops a green oxide coating.The element...
  
   (Pr, Nd, Ce, La)PO₄

The elements in parentheses are listed in the order in which they are in relative proportion within the mineral, so that lanthanum is the most common rare earth in monazite-La, and so forth.