Uranium

[Pymander]

Once, wayback, someone claimed in a counter-argument, that Uranium was a"Lithopfle element". This is the accepted view but is it right?This is based on the affinity to oxygen, so that the ligther oxides float on the core material of mainly iron. onsidering the well known processes of thermite welding, and panning for gold using metallic mercury, I can't help wondering if this ignores facts. It seems to me that these elements would have tended to exhaust available oxygen, at which point the process for forming aluminosilicates and their compsites with metallic oxides (rocks & minerals) would have ceased. The excess of iron, also a lithofile element, would otherwise not have manifested as an iron core but as part of the qlithosphere. Lithospheric "slag" would haveseparated toward the surface from an homogenous mass with a turbulent past. The iquid was (2.2 thousand million years old already since blown from supernovas at great speed = temperature before accreting.. In this ball of liquid, who knows which metals have amalgamated with this iron as it sank to the core (as in as in a thermite weld. Now it is known that there are 2 to 4 parts per million Uranium in the crust amterials. Could an experiment determine what percentage of would reside in the core, using an appropopriate thermite mix of elements? What ever mix leaves 2 to 4 parts per million U/Fe is the jackpot. Stony + iron metioritesdmay reveal some such data, but the planets differ greatly in composition, and proportion. What can these reveal with any reliability? Do we face a Krypton scenario? Are we sure that the new asteroid genesis hypothesis is correct. To say that it is a long shot is rather punny.Was the rvision meant to dispell apocalypse scenarios.are we deceived by the availability of O2 in our atmosphere. Bacteria that symbiotically invaded larger cells are ( to becomehloroplasts)are responsible. for this, since 3900MYA, when cyanobacteria first appeared. withTthe reverse side of the organic energy cycle likewise wasassumed by mitochondria (mitoclorions?). These still have their own DNA! Any way, interesting as these asides are to me, these facts, obviously relate to thecrackpot Expansion tectonics hypothesis. sthheat source implied could be significant.The consequences of say, a factor of 1000 out for core Uranium? a density of 18 tfor U to Au 19. prompts another Is density also significant, in drawing wetals down to concentrate the heavier ones over the scales of distance and time involved? I will be very interested in views or explanations on this matter.

 

Lastly, as I have done here, is there a possibility that, as the specialisation required to get to the top increases, and society becomes more economically polarised and competitive, it becomes more likely that contradictory facts, acrossing subject boundaries pass as fact unnoticed?

 

Does science choose a path come hell or high water, rather than present contrary possibilities, in a attempt to enhance credence?

 

Does unleashed knowledge threaten even a nation's position in the economic/industrial complex or waring forces, so that science is coerced, bribed, ridiculed, and honoured by the same forces?

 

What if E=mc^2 had gone to Hilter instead?

 

Could all necessary hypotheses, concerning the unchangeable nature of the manifestation already be in the hands of the select, leaving only the endless mathematical methods to unfold? Is the frontier,not yet known or released, be a pantomime like our politics, with too many willing and well paid collaborators?

 

Rome was first to fall by its own hand, misapplied!

 

Conspiracy theory, right? So was Jefferson &Einstein by today's definition, weren't they?

Edited July 26, 2015 by Pymander

[John Cuthber]

Almost all of that isn't chemistry.

The classification here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldschmidt_classification

shows where the lithophile elements are and uranium is esentially stuck in the middle of them.

It's easily oxidised

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_electrode_potential_(data_page)

 

and forms stronger bonds to oxygen than to sulphur.

 

Incidentally you are plainly wrong in saying "The excess of iron, also a lithofile element,"

Iron is the prototype siderophile .

[Pymander]

I did imply that I will not be blinkered by subject boundaries. In palaeontology and astronomy it is impossible to operate like that. But an understanding of thermite and amalgams IS chemistry. However, again, the strict application of the GoldShmidt categories is unrealistic, don't you think? With a handwave and some jargon we dismiss ANY U being amalgamated in the core, settling and concentrating under gravity in the macroscopic, and ignore an explanation for the global bedrock patterns recently mapped in age and type. Certainly a crust of lithofile oxides formed quickly and thickened. Beneath it turbulence from convection at least would have kept many lithofiles submerged in the iron, until cratons had extracted nearly all oxygen compounds. Surely, under these circumstances, our knowledge of heat generation capacity of the core,and its ultimate capacity for realease since the Cambrian Explosion, best explained by the sudden appearance of fresh water with the initial rifting, is primarily guesswork. This covers one prima facie objection to Global expansion. We assume a constant radius, and have learned nothing from the (tacit) absolute time and space hypothesis which hamstrung releativity. The second objection, likewise, is the tacit constant volume of global water hypothesis, which I covered in H2O. Why can't we be honest and say maybe this, maybe that and maybe some of each. To my mind, beyond (inorganic)chemistry and of course mathematics, no other science is is realistically able to do otherwise. Dare I say it again? The word preposterous best describes some of the hypothetical foundations laid down since Einstein and many changed for the worst (eg. The far side of the moon was our lithosphere, and left the Pacific Ocean. Even Google Earth must make you wonder if this is not true. What would the antiproton have revealed to Einstein, do you think? A unified field theory, maybe?

 

No mathematics, but I have suggested an experiment to test the theory. As for my steady State Theory. I believe a negative gravitational (but not inertial) mass for the electron would begin verification and explain much besides, even in meteorology. Can this be done yet?

[John Cuthber]

Understanding thermite reactions and amalgamation is a tiny part of chemistry.

re.

"With a handwave and some jargon we dismiss ANY U being amalgamated in the core, "

No we don't- not if we are competent chemists. That's simply not how partition equilibria work.

 

Most of the rest of what you say just doesn't make enough sense to comment on except this

"I believe a negative gravitational (but not inertial) mass for the electron would begin verification and explain much besides, even in meteorology. Can this be done yet?"

You might believe that , but it doesn't agree with the experiments.

In Mass spectrometers the inertial mass is measured, but the watt balance measures gravitational mass.

The two agree to very high precision- much better than they would if electrons had negative mass

 

The actual evidence shows that your idea is wrong. (It was never good enough to be called a theory) .

 

Reality doesn't agree with you and it isn't because reality has made a mistake.

Edited July 27, 2015 by John Cuthber

[Pymander]

Thanks for that, it somewhat puts that suspicion to rest. I don't know much about mass spectrometers, how they work and whether the technology used uses hypotheses that are inconsistent with realities not yet manifest to science. Short of that, I guess my idea is inconsistent. Pity. It seemed to simplify much for a while. Thanks for your input.

[Enthalpy]

I did write that I'm not convinced about lithophile uranium - maybe you read it from me.

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/83245-a-question-on-radioactive-decay/#entry806705

 

The usual classification seems to consider that metals that reduce iron oxides will themselves make oxides that are lighter than metallic iron hence belong to the mantle.

Though, I note that most uranium oxides are denser than metallic iron, and that in a surrounding of much molten metallic iron, uranium oxides will also lose their oxygen, just because of the abundences.

 

While I agree on this with one sidestream author, I do not support a priori his claim of a uranium reactor at Earth's center.

 

And, well, the composition of the core results from models only. Observations are only seism velocity measured across the Globe - not a harsh constraint on the models. I wish we have soon neutrino observatories that locate the radioactivity in our Earth.

 

Please take with much disconfidence, since I know nearly nothing about geophysics.

[John Cuthber]

The density of uranium oxide is a bit of a red herring.

once the temperature is high enough the oxides will all melt and mix.

If you leave a bottle of wine in the cellar the alcohol doesn't float to the top of the (denser) water to any measurable extent.

[Enthalpy]

The depth and gravitation potential of our Earth would suffice to separate elements and isotopes based on their density, what the height of a bottle doesn't suffice to. It's more a question of available time and diffusion speed.

 

To my (wrong?) understanding, we explain alumina silicates in the mantle and iron at the core just by the difference of density. Why shouldn't that apply to uranium oxide?

[John Cuthber]

The depth and gravitation potential of our Earth would suffice to separate elements and isotopes based on their density, what the height of a bottle doesn't suffice to. It's more a question of available time and diffusion speed.

 

To my (wrong?) understanding, we explain alumina silicates in the mantle and iron at the core just by the difference of density. Why shouldn't that apply to uranium oxide?

Miscibility.

Oil and water separate; alcohol and water don't.

The oxides mix (and to an extent, react) with each other, so they are much less likely to stratify.

[Enthalpy]

Oxides of varied metals combined to lessen the mean density would be a good reason, but ore like uraninite is UO₂ pure enough for a density of 10.6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uraninite

that is, denser than the iron+nickel. So I can still imagine that uranium compounds are able to sink deep in Earth's core.

[John Cuthber]

Sugar cubes are a little denser than water, but if I dropped one into the ocean I wouldn't expect it to reach the sea bed.

[Enthalpy]

Either the uranium oxide doesn't react with liquid iron and nickel (traditional claim), and then it sinks.

Or it does due to the vast excess of iron and nickel, so we get a solution of metallic uranium in iron and nickel.

 

The equilibrium clearly tells that reduced uranium atoms must sink then, because the gravity potential exceeds the heat energy by much - more than in the Ocean which is as thick as our atmosphere, where separation by gravity is already observed.

 

Then, it's a matter of mixing efficiency versus sinking speed to tell whether this equilibrium can be achieved and quickly enough - which I still have to evaluate.

[John Cuthber]

A point to remember- the further down you go, the less effect gravity has.

Also, diffusion is an effective mixing process even without any other effects (like convection in the core) That's why the wine doesn't settle out with all the dense stuff at the bottom.

[Pymander]

That removes any viability of an experiment using thermite, corrected to yield the planet's composition in terms of elements, and the results in terms of elemental distribution throughout the various divisions as both elements and layers are theorised. We won't be able to use layer resultrs because of vanishing gravity toward the centre, so that's where it will stop any correction of how much original Uranium existed. The Kryptonian scenario does, however, lend a lot of weight to prophecies about a fiery end of days.

[TheRadiochemist]

Remember however that uranium content is dropping exponentially , NOT at a linear rate. And the rate of loss does not change because of human interference, we can only decrease the amount of uranium that exists, not the rate at which is does decay. The rate is still an exponential half loss every x amount of years, no matter how much uranium has been taken out.

I also happen to be a radiochemist, so i might be able to help with problems that involve radioactive elements and their chemical properties.