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Determining the composition of the Earth

Nature volume 416, pages 39–44 (2002)Cite this article

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’.

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Figure 1: The abundances of elements in the Earth's primitive upper mantle after core formation show a stair-step pattern.
Figure 2: The major-element composition of primitive material in the inner Solar System is not of uniform composition, but defines an unexplained trend.
Figure 3: Simplified oxygen-isotope plot of inner Solar System material, after refs 15 and 40–42.
Figure 4: 187Os/188Os ratios in carbonaceous, ordinary and enstatite chondrites, and in the Earth's primitive upper mantle.
Figure 5: The D/H ratios in H2O in three comets, meteorites, Earth, protosolar H2, and Mars19,28,29,44–46.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by NASA and NSF. We thank D. Lauretta for comments. A review by T. Owen brought noble gas ratios in Solar System bodies to our attention. Discussions with H. McSween, D. Kring, R. Boehler, D. Mao, L. Stixrude, A. Morbidelli, J. Lunine, F. Robert and T. Swindle have been helpful.

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  1. Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721-0092, Arizona, USA

    Michael J. Drake & Kevin Righter

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Correspondence to Michael J. Drake.

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Drake, M., Righter, K. Determining the composition of the Earth. Nature 416, 39–44 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/416039a

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