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Aluminum warrants special mention because it is the most abundant metal and the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust; [3] despite this, it is not essential for life. With this sole exception, the eight most highly abundant elements in the Earth's crust, making up over 90% of the crustal mass, [3] are also essential for life.
The major parts of the biosphere are connected by the flow of chemical elements and compounds in biogeochemical cycles. In many of these cycles, the biota plays an important role. Matter from the Earth's interior is released by volcanoes. The atmosphere exchanges some compounds and elements rapidly with the biota and oceans.
The composition of the Earth changed after its formation due to loss of volatile compounds, melting and recrystalization, selective loss of some elements to the deep interior, and erosion by water. [3]: 55 The lanthanides are especially difficult to measure accurately. [4]
Compatibility is commonly described by an element's distribution coefficient. A distribution coefficient describes how the solid and liquid phases of an element will distribute themselves in a mineral. Current studies of Earth's rare trace elements seek to quantify and examine the chemical composition of elements in the Earth's crust.
The Goldschmidt classification, [1] [2] developed by Victor Goldschmidt (1888–1947), is a geochemical classification which groups the chemical elements within the Earth according to their preferred host phases into lithophile (rock-loving), siderophile (iron-loving), chalcophile (sulfide ore-loving or chalcogen-loving), and atmophile (gas-loving) or volatile (the element, or a compound in ...
32 of these have names tied to the Earth and the other 10 have names connected to bodies in the Solar System. The first tables below list the terrestrial locations (excluding the entire Earth itself, taken as a whole) and the last table lists astronomical objects which the chemical elements are named after. [1]
Isotope geochemistry involves the determination of the relative and absolute concentrations of the elements and their isotopes in the Earth and on Earth's surface. [ 12 ] Organic geochemistry , the study of the role of processes and compounds that are derived from living or once-living organisms.
A chemical element, often simply called an element, is a type of atom which has a specific number of protons in its atomic nucleus (i.e., a specific atomic number, or Z). [ 1 ] The definitive visualisation of all 118 elements is the periodic table of the elements , whose history along the principles of the periodic law was one of the founding ...