The Comparative Abundance Of The Elements :: essays research papers

The Comparative Abundance of The Elements- There ar 92 naturally occurring elements, only 17 of them make up 99.5% ofthe earths crust (including oceans and atmosphere). - In living things (plants,animals, people) the six most large elements are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur. - The universe is dominated 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 formation of dips and hollows which are filled with waterto form the oceans and seas. On conduct of the earths crust is an atmosphere, thisis a thin layer of gases, 95% of these gases are within the first 20km of theearths surface. Of the 17 elements that make up 99.5%, the most abundant ofthese are oxygen 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%, Hydrogen 0.9%, atomic number 22 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 table take up about 0.5%.The elements of the crust are graphed below, but only ones that are themost abundant due to the fact that the abundance of the other elements of thecrust are as well as low to graph accurately on one graph.Almost all elements are found as compounds, however Oxygen, Nitrogen,and to a lesser extent sulfur, gold, bills and platinum are the only elementswhich can be found in almost there raw sate. The atmosphere contains Oxygen andnitrogen, but it only contains a small portion 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 matter are r adically 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 alone even though they make up 99% of the mass, theyalso need some compounds of other elements such as calcium, potassium, sodium,