Argon is the most abundant noble gas in the Earth's atmosphere. Its presence was suspected in 1785 by H. Carvendish during experiments with air nitrogen; he always found a residue of ∼1/120 of the initial volume. About 100 years later in 1894, Lord Rayleigh and Sir W. Ramsey isolated argon as the first noble gas in a terrestrial sample. It was called argon from the Greek argos (the lazy one). In 1920, Aston discovered two isotopes, 36Ar and 40Ar, using his mass spectrometer. The less abundant isotope, 38Ar was discovered only in 1930. Ar has the atomic number 18. The three stable isotopes have atomic masses 35.967545, 37.962732 and 39.962384 respectively. Its valence is usually 0. Atomic weight: 39.984 g mol−1. Atomic diameter ∼3.04 Å. Melting point: 83.95 K. Boiling point: 87.29 K at 1 atm. Gas density 1.784 kg m−3 at 1 atm and 237.15 K. Argon has the electron configuration 1s22s2p63s2p6 and a first ionization potential of 15.759 eV. Its abundance in dry air is 0.934 vol.%, with 40Ar/
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Staudacher, T. (1998). Argon . In: Geochemistry. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4496-8_13
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