Hydrogen uptake in thin sputtered magnesium films covered with a Palladium layer was studied by resistance measurements. During growth, oxygen was introduced into the chamber in small amounts and the effect on the resistance, measured in situ, while growing, was monitored. This resulted in the formation of a mixture of MgO nanocrystals and layers in the Mg films. The measurements were made in situ in the sputtering chamber where the samples were grown. The aim of the study was to study the effect of oxygen contamination on hydrogen uptake in Mg films, as well as studying the uptake kinetics. Previous work on clean Mg films has shown that hydride formation at the surface reduces greatly the rate of hydrogen uptake further inside the film. These measurements show that the presence of oxygen contamination initially increases the rate of uptake greatly but decreases it when the Mg film is contaminated further with more oxygen. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.