Earth Molecule
(calculations, notes, and sources)
Note 1 : only naturally occurring elements are included; i.e., man-made elements (#’s: 93-118) are excluded from the above formula as their quantities are negligible and extremely transient in structure. For example, currently it takes researchers approximately 11 days of experiments to make three atoms of element 118 (ununoctium), which decays less than a millisecond after creation. (13)
Note 2 : mantle (68.2% of earth’s composition by mass) and core (31.4% of earth’s composition by mass) elemental compositions are inexact as approximate extrapolation techniques are currently employed to analyze their constitution.
Note 3: Most of the mass of the earth is mantle and core -- as shown below (by percent):
% Composition By Mass
Mantle = 68.2% (8,9)
Core = 31.4% (8,9)
Lithosphere = 0.374% (12)
Hydrosphere = 0.0234% (11)
Atmosphere = 0.0000859% (1,11)
Biosphere = 0.0000000577% (10)
Sources
(1) Schlesinger, William. (1991). Biogeochemisry - An analysis of Global Change .
(2) Montgomery, Carla. (2006). Environmental Geology (7th Ed). textbook. New York: McGraw Hill
(3) University of California: Disribution of Elements by Mass ( table ). (4) University of Leeds, UK - Earth Science Dept. ( table ) (5) McDonough W. (2002). University of Maryland - Department of Geology. The Earth's Core ( data ). (6) Emsley, John. (2001). Nature's Building Blocks - An A-Z Guide to the Elements. Oxford: University Press.
(7) Seafriends Marine Conservation and Education Centre ( table ) (Textbook: Duke University). New York: Academic Press.
MS Excel Results Table
-- Calculations of the Earth Molecular Formula --
# Element Sym Mass% Source Amu g/earth mol/earth atoms ________________________________________________________________________________________________
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92
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