- #1
rootone
- 3,395
- 946
Since most planets in the earliest stages of formation are very hot and fluid, why is it that we find on Earth areas where there are substantial deposits of heavier elements - gold, uranium, etc in the crust?
Intuition suggests that these relatively rare elements would become widely dispersed throughout the whole planetary body during it's fluid stage, and not concentrated in some areas.
Perhaps a higher proportion of the heavier (thus denser) elements might be expected to accumulate in the deep core, but not elsewhere, but if that happens, what is separating concentrations into one element here and another there?.
Also there would have to be some kind of unbelievably powerful convection at work to transport the core accumulations back to the surface, (and yet still allowing the accumulation to occur in the first place, and without the convection process itself mixing stuff up (diluting the concentrations) again.
Intuition suggests that these relatively rare elements would become widely dispersed throughout the whole planetary body during it's fluid stage, and not concentrated in some areas.
Perhaps a higher proportion of the heavier (thus denser) elements might be expected to accumulate in the deep core, but not elsewhere, but if that happens, what is separating concentrations into one element here and another there?.
Also there would have to be some kind of unbelievably powerful convection at work to transport the core accumulations back to the surface, (and yet still allowing the accumulation to occur in the first place, and without the convection process itself mixing stuff up (diluting the concentrations) again.