Abstract
The biosphere is part of the terrestrial ecosphere and it is generally defined as that space where arty organism can exist. Therefore it will be obvious to the geo-or bioscientist that the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the Earth’s surface and soil, as well as marine sediments belong to the living space. During Earth history, life has conquered the terrestrial and lower atmospheric regions, starting from the ocean with organic molecules about 4.0Ga ago. Through all the evolutionary processes and despite all available elements within the biosphere, life mainly involved only a few elements, chiefly H, O, C, N, S and P for its basic purposes. These few essential organic elements are, amongst others, those which can be more or less incorporated by organisms and may be necessary or toxic. Those of interest for isotope geoscientists will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
Life is an offensive, directed againt the repetitious mechanism of the universe.
Alfred North Whitehead, 1861–1947 (Adventures of ideas)
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Attendorn, HG., Bowen, R.N.C. (1997). Relevant stable isotopes in nature. In: Radioactive and Stable Isotope Geology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5840-4_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5840-4_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-6467-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-5840-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive