Early history of the Earth

The preceding discussion has shown that at the time of formation of the Earth the chemical elements already had been considerably fractionated: the universe consists almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, probably with less than 1 percent of the heavier elements. The Earth, on the other hand, consists almost entirely of the heavier elements. Helium is a very rare element on Earth, so rare in fact that it was first discovered as an unidentified line in the Sun’s spectrum in 1868, some 30 years before it was detected on Earth. Hydrogen is moderately abundant on Earth, largely because it combines with oxygen to form water, whereas helium is an inert element.

The rarity of helium and the other inert gases neon, krypton, and xenon on Earth is good evidence that the Earth formed by the accretion of small solid objects, or planetesimals. (Argon is a special case, since most of the Earth’s argon has been formed within the planet by the radioactive decay of potassium.) These planetesimals had no atmosphere, and the atmosphere of the Earth has been derived by the outgassing of combined and occluded gases within these planetesimals. This process has operated throughout geological history and is probably still continuing; volcanic activity not only brings up solid material from the Earth’s interior but also large amounts of gases, principally water vapour, carbon monoxide and dioxide, and nitrogen. The oxygen in the present atmosphere is almost entirely the product of photosynthesis, whereby carbon dioxide and water are converted to carbohydrate and free oxygen.

Direct information on the composition of the Earth’s crust is available in the form of thousands of analyses of individual rocks, the average of which provides a reasonably precise estimate of the bulk composition. For the mantle and the core the information is indirect and thus much less precise. The origin of the Earth by the accretion of planetesimals is a well-founded hypothesis, however, and meteorites are probably examples of planetesimals that have survived from the preplanetary stage of the solar system. It thus seems likely that the Earth formed by the accretion of solid bodies with the average composition of stony meteorites. The accretion process, however, led to massive segregation of the elements. Much of the iron was reduced to the metallic state and sank to the centre to form the core, carrying with it the major part of the siderophile elements. Lithophile elements, those with a greater affinity for oxygen than iron, combined as oxide compounds, mostly silicates, and provided material for the mantle and crust. Chalcophile elements would tend to form sulfides; however, few sulfides are stable at the high temperatures of the Earth’s interior, so the fate of the chalcophile elements during the early history of the Earth is somewhat uncertain.

This primary geochemical differentiation of the Earth can be interpreted in terms of the system iron–magnesium–silicon–oxygen–sulfur, because these five elements make up about 95 percent of the Earth. There was insufficient oxygen to combine with the major metallic elements iron, magnesium, and silicon; because magnesium and silicon have a greater affinity for oxygen than iron, these elements combined completely with oxygen, and the remaining oxygen combined with part of the iron, leaving the remainder as the metal iron and iron sulfide. As indicated above, the metal sank to form the core, carrying with it the major part of the siderophile elements. The iron sulfide phase probably incorporated much of the chalcophile elements; it does not seem to have formed a distinct shell within the Earth and probably remains primarily in disseminated form through the mantle and the core.

This primary geochemical differentiation was largely controlled by two independent factors, the geochemical affinity of the individual elements and the density of the principal phases. It is significant that the density of the individual elements is irrelevant in this context. Uranium and thorium, for example, are very heavy elements; nevertheless, they are concentrated in the crust, not in the core, because of their lithophile character (affinity for oxygen).

The separation of crust from mantle has involved rather different geochemical processes than those of the segregation of the core. The core represents the physical separation of a high-density metallic liquid immiscible with the silicate material of the mantle and crust, whereas the separation of crust from mantle has resulted from more subtle geochemical processes. The mantle is made up very largely of the magnesium-iron silicates olivine and pyroxene (or their high-pressure equivalents). As discussed earlier, these minerals act as sorting mechanisms for other elements, accepting those of ionic size comparable to magnesium and iron and rejecting those much larger or smaller. The crust differs from the mantle in being enriched in those elements that do not readily enter the crystal structures of olivine and pyroxene. The common elements include the alkali metals (except lithium), aluminum, and calcium to some degree. These are combined in the crust in the form of the feldspar minerals, and one of the principal differences between crust and mantle is the dominance of feldspar in the former and its absence in the latter.