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The mysterious case of the missing noble gas

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Xenon has almost vanished from Earth's atmosphere. German geoscientists think they know where it went.

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Change history

  • 12 October 2012

    This article orginally described the Earth's lower mantle as molten. It is in fact solid. It also stated that Keppler's experiments were performed at 250 times atmospheric pressure. It should have read 250,000 times. The text has been changed to correct both of these errors.

References

  1. Shcheka, S. S. & Keppler, H. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11506 (2012).

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Minerals yield signs of early plate tectonics 2008-Nov-26

Not so noble 2008-May-23

Geology: The start of the world as we know it 2006-Jul-12

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Where's the xenon?

Nature's Ewen Callaway asks Hans Keppler where all the xenon went.

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Callaway, E. The mysterious case of the missing noble gas. Nature (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.11564

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.11564

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