The Comparative Abundance of The Elements
- There are 92 naturally occurring elements, only 17 of them make up 99.5% of
the earth's crust (including oceans and atmosphere). - In living things (plants,
animals, people) the six most abundant elements are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,
nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. - The universe is dominated by the elements
hydrogen (83%) and helium (16%)
1. The Crust
The outside of the earth is a thin crust which is approximately 20 to 40km
thick. The crust is a formation of dips and hollows which are filled with water
to form the oceans and seas. On top of the earth's crust is an atmosphere, this
is a thin layer of gases, 95% of these gases are within the first 20km of the
earth's surface. Of the 17 elements that make up 99.5%, the most abundant of
these are Oxygen 49.2%, Silicon 25%, and Aluminum 7.5%. Then the next most
abundant elements are Iron 4.7%, Calcium 3.4%, Sodium 2.6%, Potassium 2.4%,
Magnesium 1.9%, Hydrogen 0.9%, titanium 0.6%, Chlorine 0.2%, Phosphorus
Manganese and Carbon are all 0.1%, Sulfur 0.05% Barium 0.04%, Nitrogen 0.03% and
the rest of the elements on the periodic table take up about 0.5%.
The elements of the crust are graphed below, but only ones that are the
most abundant due to the fact that the abundance of the other elements of the
crust are too low to graph accurately on one graph.
Almost all elements are found as compounds, however Oxygen, Nitrogen,
and to a lesser extent sulfur, gold, silver and platinum are the only elements
which can be found in almost there raw sate. The atmosphere contains Oxygen and
nitrogen, but it only contains a small portion of the earth's oxygen, this is
because most of the world's oxygen is found in water, oxides of metals, and as
silicates. Common soils and clays are silicates.
2. Living Things
In living things (plants, animals, people) the six most abundant elements
are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur (known as CHONPS).
Most compounds in living matter are radically complex, each molecule could
contain hundreds or thousand's of atoms. Carbohydrates and fats are compounds
which contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen only. Proteins are also compounds and
they contain nitrogen, sulfur and occasionally phosphorus. Living matter cannot
live on these six elements alone; even though they make up 99% of the mass, they
also need some compounds of other elements such as calcium, potassium, sodium,
Aluminum is the third most abundant element and most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust. Aluminum is never found in the free element state in nature. It
3. Identify the layers of the Earth shown in the diagram to the right. (S6E5a)
in circumference. The outer few miles of lithosphere is made up of rock called crust.
There are three main layers of earth, the crust, mantle, and core. The first main layer is the crust which is the outer
same liquid rock matter that you see coming out of volcanoes. On Earth's surface, wind and water can break rock into pieces. They can also carry rock pieces to another place. Usually, the rock pieces. called sediments, dropped from the wind or water to form a layer.
Earth's floor then is sucked into deep ocean trenches creating a force, this called subduction. As two rock plates slide past one another a crack or fault develops, which prevents energy to form an earthquake. One of these plates are called Tectonic Plates. Tectonic Plates are pieces of crust moving around earth, pushing together, pulling apart and sliding past each other. The second plate is Plate Tectonics. This is when earth's crust is made up of rigid plate that "float" on molten layer of the mantle beneath earth's crust. Oceanic- oceanic plate is a similar plate that sinks under the other when the two plates converge. With these plates in motion, causes movement and the split of continents. As one plate moves, it cause other plates to move. The split between supercontinent led to divergent evolution, unique species formed in response to different environment conditions, this was the height of the age of
comes up in a crack in the Earth’s crust, it does not come to the surface, but
General Description: Earth may be the most unique of all planets because of the life forms we know exist here and the way they utilize the Suns energy. The Earth is composed of a great amount of water, mostly in the form of oceans, which make up most of its surface. It also contains various gases, of which make it possible for us humans to exist and is a system that exists between plants and animals here.
The densest of these layers is the core, which is composed largely of metallic iron, with small amounts of nickel and other elements². The less dense mantle then covers this layer, being composed of magnesium and iron silicates. The outermost layer is that of the crust, it has the lowest density of all the layers and can be separated further as its thickness varies greatly from place to place, with the difference being distinguished by land and sea and also its composition. For this reason the core is subdivided into the continental crust (average thickness 45km with a granitic composition) and the oceanic crust (average thickness 8km with a basaltic composition)¹. Similarly the core can also be subdivided, but the difference is not one between compositions but one by physical state. The inner core of the Earth is solid iron; this is because it is under such high pressure, so high that temperature has no bearing on its state. The outer core has a balance between temperature and pressure so it’s iron composition is in the molten state.
introduce this element. There is not much phosphorus on Earth (only about 0.1 percent of the
The lithosphere is an open system, which contains all of the cold, hard, solid rock of the planet's crust (surface), the hot semi-solid rock that lies underneath the crust, the hot liquid rock near the center of the planet, and the solid iron core (center) of the planet (Answers.com). On Earth, the lithosphere comprises the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The lithosphere is about sixty miles thick (Lenkeit).
Fate and freewill are two sides of the same coin. The differences are that fate is the uncontrollable force that shapes one’s destiny, while freewill is the power one has to mold his own future. The confounding mystery is, which of the two governs life? The famous tragedian, Sophocles, in his play, Oedipus the King, illustrates the perplexity of the question. Oedipus’s life is one of great tragedy and he experiences many things throughout his life, but the essence of the play is comprised up of the battle of fate versus freewill.
The interior structure of the earth is made up of crust, the mantle and core (inner core and outer core). Earthquakes occur on the crust. Crust forms the external layer of the earth surface. On the crust, the plate tectonics forces are in charge of causing the abrupt earth movements. Due to the existence of an immense temperature and concurrent pressure difference in the outer layer and inner layer of the earth, convection currents occur at the mantle. This energy results from overwhelming decomposition of radioactive substances contained by the rocks found at the interior of the earth. The developed convection currents lead to movement of lava; cold lava finds its way to the interior of the earth crust, while the molten lava which is generally hot, leaves the interior of the earth to the outside of the earth crust. These kinds of circulations occur at different locations of the earth surface and consequently results in segmentation of the earth due to movement in different directions.