Talk:Abundance of the chemical elements

Parts of this article are taken from the public domain source at http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/fact-sheet/fs087-02/ Please update as needed.

Argon

I'm debating the phrasing I use with regard to argon in the bottom. I know they get helium out of natural gas wells, and it would surprise me if argon isn't found in the crust at all; I know it's generally produced by distillation of liquid air, so I doubt it's a major component of the crust (since it'd be cheaper to get it there if it were), but I wonder if that's an error in the original page. Argon must occur between the grains of sandstone in greater abundance than some elements that are listed -- Pakaran 13:18, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

On another note, if anyone wants to make a list for the universe, see [1], which is the best source I could find. I get the following log10 figures for their numbers, keeping 3 digits, which is more than they do:

• H 4.08
• He 3.45
• O 1.20
• N .90
• C .48
• Fe .42
• Si 0 exact
• Mg -.051
• S -.481
• Ni -.678
• Al -1.05
• Ca -1.15
• Na -1.34
• Cl -1.60

Pakaran 13:30, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The standard abundance distribution used for the Sun in the astrophysics community is derived from one by Anders & Grevesse, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (ISSN 0016-7037), vol. 53, Jan. 1989, p. 197-214. There have been several improvements (some minor, some important) to that distribution since 1989. Those are normally on an element-by-element basis, which are published in normal refereed journals. However, new comprehensive tables for all elements -- which is what I'd like to insert into Wikipedia -- tend to get published only in conference proceedings and are difficult to find. This standard abundance distribution is derived from both lab analysis of primitive meteorites and spectroscopic analysis of the Sun. BSVulturis 19:32, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Could someone add some consideration on the abundance of elements on plants, animals ans specially the human body? Or, if you think here is not the place, add a link to the proper article?

Rend 01:47, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Human Composition

I've found about the human body, I don't know how up to date the source, sorry, I can't update right now, im in a hurry, could someone add this for me?

Most of the human body is made up of water, H2O, with cells consisting of 65-90% water by weight. Therefore, it isn't surprising that most of a human body's mass is oxygen. Carbon, the basic unit for organic molecules, comes in second. 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of just six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus.

• Oxygen (65%)
• Carbon (18%)
• Hydrogen (10%)
• Nitrogen (3%)
• Calcium (1.5%)
• Phosphorus (1.0%)
• Potassium (0.35%)
• Sulfur (0.25%)
• Sodium (0.15%)
• Magnesium (0.05%)
• Copper, Zinc, Selenium, Molybdenum, Fluorine, Chlorine, Iodine, Manganese, Cobalt, Iron (0.70%)
• Lithium, Strontium, Aluminum, Silicon, Lead, Vanadium, Arsenic, Bromine (trace amounts)

Found at: http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howthingswork/f/blbodyelements.htm

Reference: H. A. Harper, V. W. Rodwell, P. A. Mayes, Review of Physiological Chemistry, 16th ed., Lange Medical Publications, Los Altos, California 1977.

Rend 03:07, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm having a little trouble with this list. I have to assume these chemists know more than I do, but simple logic makes me wonder how hydrogen can be 10% of the body? If most of the body is water (65 to 90%) and water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, how can there be more oxygen (65%) than hydrogen (10%) in the body? Something's not adding up.

Hillsc 04:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

The list is by mass. Oxygen atoms are sixteen times as massive as hydrogen atoms.--Syd Henderson 01:22, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

But how many elements?

This article discusses relative abundance, but not absolute abundance. How many *naturally occurring* elements are on the earth? In the universe? What are their names?

Norm

Naturally now present on Earth are all the stable elements, plus those with isotopes with half-lives of roughly a billion years or more, plus some small amounts of the unstable decay products of those. That means all the elements up lead (excepting the pure-unstable elements Tc and Pm), plus Th and U (which are unstable but with billion-year half-lives), and finally plus tiny proportions of the elements between Pb and U (the decay products of U and Th). Human activity in the Atomic Age has added traces of others. BSVulturis 19:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

As for which these are on the periodic table, they are all elements with numbers less than that of uranium.--Scorpion451 01:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Diagrams

• http://universe-review.ca/I14-08-elements.jpg A picture, like this were useful (universe).
• http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect20/A7.html On this page are not so nice diagrams (solar system, earth, sun), but it is on NASA page, these can be public domain.

--Harp 15:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Missing link/article

The section Abundance of elements in the Universe speaks about (repulsive) dark energy and (attractive) dark matter. That's fine with me, and measuring their amounts probably affects what abundance of different chemical elements we may expect in the Universe. But for anyone not accustomed to the concepts dark energy and dark matter it would be appropriate with a {{main|dark matter}} and a {{main|dark energy}} or so, to explain the concepts. Rursus declamavi; 13:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, those links exist, but I'm still discontent: it should be clearer how dark thingies affect the abundance of chemical elements. I'll take a look later, when my template-for-star-constellations are fully implemented. L8R!! Rursus declamavi; 13:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Abundance of the chemical elements in organisms

That table doesn't look correct, if "number of atoms for a thousand carbon atoms" is true. The data may be correct if it is "mass per 1000 mass units of carbon". Icek 15:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Icek is right, once I realized he wasn't objecting to the trivially true carbon figure of 1000. An organism is mostly H2O, therefore there should be more hydrogen atoms than oxygen atoms (but not more hydrogen mass than oxygen mass). Art LaPella 17:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You are of course correct, and I completely forgot the water ;). In the dry mass, there should also be more hydrogen than carbon atoms (in carbohydrates: most common monosaccharides are C6H12O6, and chained the formula is effectively C6H10O5; in fats: the most common fatty acids contain about twice as much H as C; in proteins: 17 out of 20 amino acid rests contain more H than C). Icek 17:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

While you are correct that the body contains quite a bit of hydrogen, compounds such as Phenols and polycyclic compounds(which contain multiple carbon rings connected, requiring fewer hydrogen atoms- these are especially common in neurochemicals and hormones) found in the body help make up some of the difference. Other large concentrations of carbon can be found in bone, connective tissues and keratin. The quantity on the chart may seem low, but also remember that the chart is by mass, and carbon weighs 12 times as much as hydrogen, before one considers that a significant portion is carbon 14 and so weighs 14 times as much.--Scorpion451 02:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

"chart is by mass" - not according to the chart's labeling it isn't. Abundance of the chemical elements#Organisms is labeled "atoms of the element per 1000 atoms of carbon" and "Note that this "abundance" is not the same as mass-fraction, as different elements vary greatly in mass." The table is at least mismatched with its labeling. The atom-fraction (not mass fraction) abundance in organisms should be about 50% H, 25% C and 25% O according to [2]. Art LaPella 04:47, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Ohhh, that chart, I was looking at the human body one. It is by ratio. Yes that chart is definatly way off. Thanks for drawing my attention to that, I know where to find more reliable numbers. See if I can't fix that.--Scorpion451 05:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find the chart I saw a while back on Nasa's website, so until someone can find the right numbers the chart should be removed from the page. I'm putting it here so we still have it, but it still needs to be corrected.--Scorpion451 rant 23:01, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Organisms

The atom-fraction abundance of elements compared to carbon, expressed as atoms of the element per 1000 atoms of carbon* (taken from Mary K. Campbell, Shawn O. Farrell - Biochemistry)

Element	in Organisms	in Universe
Hydrogen	80 - 250	10000000
Carbon	1000	1000
Nitrogen	60 - 300	1600
Oxygen	500 - 800	5000
Sodium	10 - 20	12
Magnesium	2 - 8	200
Phosphorus	8 - 50	3
Sulfur	4 - 20	80
Potassium	6 - 40	0.6
Calcium	25 - 50	10
Manganese	0.25 - 0.8	1.6
Iron	0.25 - 0.8	100
Zinc	0.1 - 0.4	0.12

 * Note that this "abundance" is not the same as mass-fraction, as different elements vary greatly in mass.

Parts per million vs. percent

The first table in the article lists element abundances in parts per million and the latter two, human body and ocean water compositions, are in percent. Is there a reason for the differing representations? --dinomite (talk) 19:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

"Orders of Magnitude" is misused

In the elements in the universe section, the statement:

"...; oxygen has abundance rank 3, but atomic number 8. All others are orders of magnitude less common. "

is incorrect. Oxygen is only about 2 times more common than the next element down (Carbon), not "orders of magnitude" which implies a factor of 100 or more. Perhaps what is mean is that H and He are orders of magnitude more abundant than other elements. If so, this should clarified. I will go ahead an change this to "substantially lower". Feel free to improve further

Substar (talk) 03:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)Substar

Abundance of elements in Earth's crust Graph Sucks

See [[3]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.233.80.254 (talk) 05:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I almost reverted the above as linkspam, but I think he wants us to search thru the "Featured Articles" for a criticism of the graph. Art LaPella (talk) 06:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Abundance of elements in the Universe

The first section on cosmic abundances could use some discussion of the analysed content of carbonaceous chondrites. --arkuat (talk) 03:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Abundance of elements in universe-- mass vs. nuclei

I find these two charts (and in particular the relative amounts of Hydrogen and Helium in each) confusing. Hydrogen-1 has 705,700 nuclei per million to Helium-4 (which is 4 times heavier)'s 275,200. In both cases the other isotopes are so rare as to be negligible. Yet in the end Hydrogen still makes up more than twice as much mass as Helium. How are these numbers consistent? Kevinatilusa (talk) 00:34, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, the table with the parts per million is definitly misleading. The numbers in the table are the mass fractions not the nuclei per million. This should be changed! E.g. of 100 nuclei 92 are hydrogen, and 7.8 are helium nuclei, which translates into a mass fraction of 73.5 % hydrogen and 24.8 % helium... In Astrophysics we often use the tables of Grevesse, Anders, Abundances of the elements: Metoritic and solar, 1989 or newer versions

In the meantime I changed the parts per million in the tables to mass fraction in parts per million. MacHyver (talk) 18:14, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm trying to find a list of element commonality in the universe, by rank, and this article was not very helpful for that. And this is ranked MID Importance?!?!? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.145.151.112 (talk) 00:13, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Alternating trend

The graph of relative abundance of elements in the solar system is fascinating, but while the pattern of alternation between odd and even atomic numbers is noted in the caption, it is not explained anywhere, unless I'm missing something. What causes it? (Explanation should go in the article rather than here.) Beorhtwulf (talk) 17:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I added a new section on "Elemental abundance and nuclear binding energy" that gives a quick explanation; follow the Wikilink to "Semi-empirical mass formula" if you want to see the gory details.Reify-tech (talk) 06:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks for adding that. Beorhtwulf (talk) 15:48, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Sources needed

The section on "Atmospheric elemental abundance" gives no sources, and is sketchy on data beyond the top 3 elements.Reify-tech (talk) 06:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I found some potential new (to me) sources at http://www.webelements.com/periodicity/ (heavy use of Flash). Lists of elemental abundances for the Universe, Sun, meteorites, Earth, ocean, streamwater. I haven't formed any opinion on their usability yet. Any comments?Reify-tech (talk) 22:20, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Charts and graphs

The bar chart tables and pie charts are an interesting addition, although the wide magnitude range of the abundance numbers poses a difficult challenge in presenting the data clearly. The compromise used in the Milky Way Galaxy table seems to work passably well; I hadn't realized how Neon outweighs Silicon and Magnesium combined, even though the numeric data is already right there in the table.

However, please consider removing the pseudo-3D pie charts, and using ordinary 2D pie charts instead. The pseudo-3D doesn't add any clarity, and visually distorts the information being presented. See the article on chartjunk for a bit more more on how spurious 3D can obscure the data.

Also, please do show the sources (in a footnote, if needed) for the information in the piecharts at the top of the article. Thank you! Reify-tech (talk) 22:16, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Formatting help

I added the section on total abundancies, but cannot figure out how to get the table to display in the correct spot. Any help would be appreciated. Nick Beeson (talk) 15:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

The new table is quite comprehensive, but may actually be too large for the article, pushing other important information far down the page. I strongly recommend breaking the table out into a separate article, pointed to by the brief introductory text already in the article. A possible title is "Bulk (total) elemental abundance of the Earth". Alternatively, see the article Abundances of the elements (data page) which already accommodates several data tables too large for the main article; it may be better to incorporate the material into an existing table there. Either way, this resolves the formatting issue in the already-crowded main overview article. Reify-tech (talk) 16:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Oceanic elemental abundance: obvoius errors, looks like abundance in rock

Seawater is "On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L," (see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundances_of_the_elements_%28data_page%29#Sea_water which is referenced) It is mostly water! One Liter of Water equals one Kilogram by definition. In my head that comes out to be about 888 grams ¹⁶Oxygen and 111 grams ¹Hydrogen per Kilo, or per Liter, of H₂O.

Why is Hydrogen listed as 260 parts per million? Shjacks45 (talk) 03:46, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Formatting glitch placed that table in a wrong section. Fixed. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 04:37, 11 September 2011 (UTC)