I also got a “An Earth Scientist’s Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions.” The “normal” periodic table is useful for chemistry, but not as useful for the earth sciences. In the earth’s crust the elements almost always exist in the form of ions: oxygen as O^2-, silicon as Si⁴⁺, the metals in their ionic forms, such as Na⁺, Cu²⁺, Fe²⁺, and Fe³⁺. Because of this, this periodic table lists ions rather than elements, and many elements occur multiple times in different parts of the table.

It will take me some time to figure out everything on this table, but I look forward to it.

Grace and Peace