Determining the composition of the Earth

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, Mar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) 2002-03, Vol.416 (6876), p.39-44
Main Authors: Drake, Michael J, Righter, Kevin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Earth
Earth mantle
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
Geochemistry
Geochemistry: general, methodology, regional studies
Geology
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Osmium
review-article
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary: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/H 2 O 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’.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/416039a