Abstract
NITROGEN is one of the most abundant elements in the cosmos; in the Sun, only H, He, O and C exceed it1. In the Earth's crust it ranks only as the thirty-first element in magmatic rocks2, at a level of about 20 p.p.m. Because of the analytic difficulties in determining the nitrogen content of rocks little work has been done in this direction since Lord Rayleigh's determinations3, which gave nitrogen contents in the range of 28 to 68 p.p.m. for a variety of magmatic rocks. These values are confirmed by recent determinations4. Most workers assume, without further proof, that most or all nitrogen is present as the ammonium ion3,5, substituting to a small extent for alkali ions in the minerals.
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BAUR, W. Occurrence of Nitride Nitrogen in Silicate Minerals. Nature 240, 461–462 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1038/240461a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/240461a0
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