While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
- Element abundance is a relative measure of the occurrence of a chemical element in a given environment.
- An element’s relative abundance can be expressed as a mass fraction, mole fraction, or volume fraction.
- Mass fraction is the ratio of an element’s mass to the combined mass of all elements in a given environment.
- The mass fraction of calcium (Ca) is 17,100 parts per million (ppm), or 1.71%, on Earth.
- The mass fraction of potassium (K) is 160 ppm, or 0.016%, on Earth.