The Comparative Abundance Of The Elements :: essays research papers

The Comparative Abundance of The Elements- There ar 92 natur each(prenominal)y occurring elements, just 17 of them make up 99.5% ofthe earths gall (including oceans and atmosphere). - In backup things (plants,animals, people) the six most commodious elements atomic number 18 carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,nitrogen, phosphorus and southward. - The universe is dominate by the elementshydrogen (83%) and helium (16%)1. The CrustThe outside of the earth is a thin crust which is approximately 20 to 40kmthick. The crust is a ecesis of dips and hollows which are filled with waterto form the oceans and seas. On top of the earths crust is an atmosphere, thisis a thin layer of gases, 95% of these gases are within the maiden 20km of theearths surface. Of the 17 elements that make up 99.5%, the most abundant ofthese are atomic number 8 49.2%, Silicon 25%, and Aluminum 7.5%. Then the next mostabundant elements are Iron 4.7%, Calcium 3.4%, Sodium 2.6%, Potassium 2.4%,Magnesium 1.9%, total h eat 0.9%, titanium 0.6%, Chlorine 0.2%, PhosphorusManganese and Carbon are all 0.1%, Sulfur 0.05% Barium 0.04%, Nitrogen 0.03% andthe rest of the elements on the periodic tabularise take up about 0.5%.The elements of the crust are graphed below, but solely ones that are themost abundant due to the fact that the abundance of the some other elements of thecrust are too low to graph accurately on one graph.Almost all elements are found as compounds, even Oxygen, Nitrogen,and to a lesser extent sulfur, gold, silver and platinum are the only elementswhich can be found in almost there desolate sate. The atmosphere contains Oxygen andnitrogen, but it only contains a small passel of the earths oxygen, this isbecause most of the worlds oxygen is found in water, oxides of metals, and assilicates. Common soils and clays are silicates.2. Living ThingsIn living things (plants, animals, people) the six most abundant elementsare carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur (known as CHONPS).Most compounds in living progeny are radically complex, each molecule couldcontain hundreds or thousands of atoms. Carbohydrates and fats are compoundswhich contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen only. Proteins are also compounds andthey contain nitrogen, sulfur and occasionally phosphorus. Living matter cannotlive on these six elements exclusively even though they make up 99% of the mass, theyalso contend some compounds of other elements such as calcium, potassium, sodium,