GEOCHEMICAL CLASSIFICATION OF ELEMENTS AND MINERAL STATISTICS

Abstract

Since the time of Vernadskiy and Goldschmidt, chemical elements have been divided into siderophile, chalcophile, lithophile, atmophile, biophile and the like. In the classification proposed by different authors, though, the same element is often assigned to different groups. Modern mineralogic statistics makes it possible to express quantitatively the common geochemical properties of elements, such as the extent to which their compounds can be regarded as sulphophile and covalent (chalcophile), as oxyphile and ionic (lithophile), or as metallophile and metallic (siderophile). For this purpose, the authors used all data available in 1987 for the distribution of the number of minerals of each element by mineralogic taxon. Results are presented in tabular form and discussed.