Mining
Visualizing the Scale and Composition of the Earth’s Crust
Visualizing the Scale and Composition of the Earth’s Crust
For as long as humans have been wandering the top of Earth’s crust, we’ve been fascinated with what’s inside.
And Earth’s composition has been vital for our advancement. From finding the right kinds of rocks to make tools, all the way to making efficient batteries and circuit boards, we rely on minerals in Earth’s crust to fuel innovation and technology.
This animation by Dr. James O’Donoghue, a planetary researcher at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA, is a visual comparison of Earth’s outer layers and their major constituents by mass.
What is the Composition of Earth’s Crust?
The combined mass of Earth’s surface water and crust, the stiff outermost layer of our planet, is less than half a percent of the total mass of the Earth.
There are over 90 elements found in Earth’s crust. But only a small handful make up the majority of rocks, minerals, soil, and water we interact with daily.
1. Silicon
Most abundant in the crust is silicon dioxide (SiO2), found in pure form as the mineral quartz. We use quartz in the manufacturing of glass, electronics, and abrasives.
Why is silicon dioxide so abundant? It can easily combine with other elements to form “silicates,” a group of minerals that make up over 90% of Earth’s crust.
Clay is one of the better-known silicates and micas are silicate minerals used in paints and cosmetics to make them sparkle and shimmer.
Mineral | Major Elements | Percentage of Crust |
---|---|---|
Plagioclase Feldspar | O, Si, Al, Ca, Na | 39% |
Alkali Feldspar | O, Si, Al, Na, K | 12% |
Quartz | O, Si | 12% |
Pyroxene | O, Si, Mg, Fe | 11% |
Amphibole | O, Si, Mg, Fe | 5% |
Non-silicates | Variable | 8% |
Micas | O, Si, Al, Mg, Fe, Ca, Na, K | 5% |
Clay Minerals | O, Si, Al, Mg, Fe, Ca, Na, K | 5% |
Other Silicates | O, Si | 3% |
2. Aluminum and Calcium
SiO2 bonds very easily with aluminum and calcium, our next most abundant constituents. Together with some sodium and potassium, they form feldspar, a mineral that makes up 41% of rocks on Earth’s surface.
While you may not have heard of feldspar, you use it every day; it’s an important ingredient in ceramics and it lowers the melting point of glass, making it cheaper and easier to produce screens, windows, and drinking glasses.
3. Iron and Magnesium
Iron and magnesium each make up just under 5% of the crust’s mass, but they combine with SiO2 and other elements to form pyroxenes and amphiboles. These two important mineral groups constitute around 16% of crustal rocks.
Maybe the best known of these minerals are the two varieties of jade, jadeite (pyroxene) and nephrite (amphibole). Jade minerals have been prized for their beauty for centuries, and are commonly used in counter-tops, construction, and landscaping.
Some asbestos minerals, now largely banned for their cancer-causing properties, belong to the amphibole mineral group. They were once in high demand for their insulating and fire-retardant properties and were even used in brake pads, cigarette filters, and as artificial snow.
4. Water
Surprisingly, even though it covers almost three quarters of Earth’s surface, water (H2O) makes up less than 5% of the crust’s mass. This is partly because water is significantly less dense than other crustal constituents, meaning it has less mass per volume.
Breaking Earth’s Crust Down by Element
Though there are many different components that form the Earth’s crust, all of the above notably include oxygen.
When breaking down the crust by element, oxygen is indeed the most abundant element at just under half the mass of Earth’s crust. It is followed by silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, and sodium.
All other remaining elements make up just over 5% of the crust’s mass. But that small section includes all the metals and rare earth elements that we use in construction and technology, which is why discovering and economically extracting them is so crucial.
What Lies Below?
As the crust is only the outermost layer of Earth, there are other layers left to contemplate and discover. While we have never directly interacted with the Earth’s mantle or core, we do know quite a bit about their structure and composition thanks to seismic tomography.
The Upper Mantle
At a few specific spots on Earth, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes have been strong enough to expose pieces of the upper mantle, which are also made of mostly silicates.
The mineral olivine makes up about 55% of the upper mantle composition and causes its greenish color. Pyroxene comes in second at 35%, and calcium-rich feldspar and other calcium and aluminum silicates make up between 5โ10%.
Going Even Deeper
Beyond the upper mantle, Earth’s composition is not as well known.
Deep-mantle minerals have only been found on Earth’s surface as components of extra-terrestrial meteorites and as part of diamonds brought up from the deep mantle.
One thing the lower mantle is thought to contain is the silicate mineral bridgmanite, at an abundance of up to 75%. Earth’s core, meanwhile, is believed to be made up of iron and nickel with small amounts of oxygen, silicon, and sulphur.
As technology improves, we will be able to discover more about the mineral and elemental makeup of the Earth and have an even better understanding of the place we all call home.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.
Urbanization
Ranked: The World’s Biggest Steel Producers, by Country
China has dominated global steel production the past few decades, but how did the country get here, and is its production growth over?

Ranked: The World’s Biggest Steel Producers, by Country
This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on real assets and resource megatrends each week.
Steel is a critical component of modern industry and economy, essential for the construction of buildings, automobiles, and many other appliances and infrastructure used in our daily lives.
This graphic uses data from the World Steel Association to visualize the world’s top steel-producing countries, and highlights China’s ascent to the top, as it now makes up more than half of the world’s steel production.
The State of Global Steel Production
Global steel production in 2022 reached 1,878 million tonnes, barely surpassing the pre-pandemic production of 1,875 million tonnes in 2019.
Country | 2022 Production (in million tonnes) | Annual Production Change | Global Share |
---|---|---|---|
๐จ๐ณ China | 1013.0 | -2.0% | 53.9% |
๐ฎ๐ณ India | 124.8 | 5.3% | 6.6% |
๐ฏ๐ต Japan | 89.2 | -7.9% | 4.8% |
๐บ๐ธ United States | 80.5 | -6.5% | 4.3% |
๐ท๐บ Russia | 71.5 | -5.8% | 3.8% |
๐ฐ๐ท South Korea | 65.9 | -6.9% | 3.5% |
๐ฉ๐ช Germany | 36.8 | -8.8% | 2.0% |
๐น๐ท Tรผrkiye | 35.1 | -15.0% | 1.9% |
๐ง๐ท Brazil | 34.0 | -6.5% | 1.8% |
๐ฎ๐ท Iran | 30.6 | 6.8% | 1.6% |
๐ฎ๐น Italy | 21.6 | -13.0% | 1.1% |
๐น๐ผ Taiwan | 20.7 | -12.1% | 1.1% |
๐ป๐ณ Vietnam | 20.0 | -15.0% | 1.1% |
๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico | 18.2 | -1.9% | 1.0% |
๐ฎ๐ฉ Indonesia | 15.6 | 8.3% | 0.8% |
Rest of World | 201.0 | -11.2% | 10.7% |
World Total | 1878.5 | -3.9% | 100.0% |
2022’s steel production marked a significant reduction compared to the post-pandemic rebound of 1,960 million tonnes in 2021, with a year-over-year decline of 4.2%โthe largest drop since 2009, and prior to that, 1991.
This decline was spread across many of the world’s top steel producers, with only three of the top fifteen countries, India, Iran, and Indonesia, increasing their yearly production. Most of the other top steel-producing countries saw annual production declines of more than 5%, with Turkey, Italy, Taiwan, and Vietnam’s production all declining by double digits.
Even the world’s top steel-producing nation, China, experienced a modest 2% decline, which due to the country’s large production amounted to a decline of 19.8 million tonnes, more than many other nations produce in a year.
Despite India, the world’s second-largest steel producer, increasing its production by 5.3%, the country’s output still amounts to just over one-tenth of the steel produced by China.
China’s Meteoric Rise in Steel Production
Although China dominates the world’s steel production with more than a 54% share today, this hasn’t always been the case.
In 1967, the World Steel Association’s first recorded year of steel production figures, China only produced an estimated 14 million tonnes, making up barely 3% of global output. At that time, the U.S. and the USSR were competing as the world’s top steel producers at 115 and 102 million tonnes respectively, followed by Japan at 62 million tonnes.
Almost three decades later in 1996, China had successively overtaken Russia, the U.S., and Japan to become the top steel-producing nation with 101 million tonnes of steel produced that year.
The early 2000s marked a period of rapid growth for China, with consistent double-digit percentage increases in steel production each year.
The Recent Decline in China’s Steel Production
Since the early 2000s, China’s average annual growth in steel production has slowed to 3.4% over the last decade (2013-2022), a considerable decline compared to the previous decade’s (2003-2012) 15.2% average annual growth rate.
The past couple of years have seen China’s steel production decline, with 2021 and 2022 marking the first time the country’s production fell for two consecutive years in a row.
While it’s unlikely China will relinquish its position as the top steel-producing nation anytime soon, it remains to be seen whether this recent decline marks the beginning of a new trend or just a brief deviation from the country’s consistent production growth.
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