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Willamette Meteorite on display at the American Museum of Natural History. It has 7.62% nickel. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons / "Dante Alighieri" (CC BY-SA 3.0) |
Nickel (Ni) turns out to be another mineral that points to a young age for the oceans. Very small levels of nickel are essential to life, but higher levels are toxic. The current background level of nickel in sea water is 0.228–0.693 parts per billion (PPB). The rate at which nickel is entering the ocean can be determined from fresh water studies, which indicate that dissolved nickel in ‘pure’ waters ranges from 1–3 PPB. While water in industrialized areas has a higher concentration of nickel, for this calculation the lower figure will be used.To read the entire article and see the images, click on "Nickel concentration indicates young oceans".
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