Bulk Composition of Planet Earth by Mass
Key Findings
About This Dataset
Bulk Composition of Planet Earth by MassMeasured as a whole planet, Earth is an iron world: iron makes up 32.1% of its total mass, narrowly ahead of oxygen at 30.1%. This is a striking reversal of the crust, where oxygen dominates and iron ranks only fourth. The difference reflects planetary structure, most of Earth's iron sank early to form the dense metallic core, while lighter, oxygen-bearing silicate minerals rose to build the mantle and crust. Silicon (15.1%) and magnesium (13.9%) are the principal mantle elements, followed by sulfur, nickel, calcium and aluminium. Just four elements, iron, oxygen, silicon and magnesium, account for over 90% of the planet's entire mass. As with the crust beneath our feet, an entire world turns out to be built from remarkably few chemical ingredients.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- Composition of Earth (crust to core)
- Coverage
- 8 entities · 8 observations
- Measure
- Share of Earth's Total Mass (%)
- Last updated
- 7 July 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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