Sign on

SAO/NASA ADS Astronomy Abstract Service

· Find Similar Abstracts (with default settings below)
· Electronic Refereed Journal Article (HTML)
· References in the article
· Citations to the Article (202) (Citation History)
· Refereed Citations to the Article
· Also-Read Articles (Reads History)
·
· Translate This Page
Title:
Determining the composition of the Earth
Authors:
Drake, Michael J.; Righter, Kevin
Publication:
Nature, Volume 416, Issue 6876, pp. 39-44 (2002). (Nature Homepage)
Publication Date:
03/2002
Origin:
NATURE
DOI:
10.1038/416039a
Bibliographic Code:
2002Natur.416...39D

Abstract

A long-standing question in the planetary sciences asks what the Earth is made of. For historical reasons, volatile-depleted primitive materials similar to current chondritic meteorites were long considered to provide the `building blocks' of the terrestrial planets. But material from the Earth, Mars, comets and various meteorites have Mg/Si and Al/Si ratios, oxygen-isotope ratios, osmium-isotope ratios and D/H, Ar/H2O and Kr/Xe ratios such that no primitive material similar to the Earth's mantle is currently represented in our meteorite collections. The `building blocks' of the Earth must instead be composed of unsampled `Earth chondrite' or `Earth achondrite'.
Bibtex entry for this abstract   Preferred format for this abstract (see Preferences)

Find Similar Abstracts:

Use: Authors
Title
Abstract Text
Return: Query Results Return    items starting with number
Query Form
Database: Astronomy
Physics
arXiv e-prints