is dimaond the hardest element found on earth?
477021
Not an element; yes its still the king of hardness\nThere are experiments ongoing with low-speed nuclear bombardment of iridium with smaller nuclei which are producing very thin layers of great density that approaches the hardness of diamond.
1150478
It's widely believed in the scientific community that the earth has a liquid mantle (that's where magma/lava comes from) and a solid super-hot iron core.  Good luck digging through that.
879268
Zinc is by far the best element. I also like plutonium.  It's just fun to say. "Plutonium."
385679
Osmium is the densest matter here on planet earth if I recall correctly from chemistry.  Black holes, white dwarves, neutron stars, the big bang singularity... Are all working theories at this point.  Since we can't simulate them in a lab and can't travel to them to sample them, we are stuck with mathematical testing.  So if you want something that you could pick up (you might need a protective suit), then it is osmium.  Otherwise the highest density occurred about 15 billion years ago at the start of the big bang.
454213
I have disagree with the first answer as 35% of the earth is Iron. And while Aluminum is more abundent on the surface, nearly 80% of the core is iron. So I have to go with Iron.
1181036
Ruby, a form of Corundum has a hardness of 9 on the Moh's Scale.\n\nCalcite is a 3 \nK-Spar is a 6\nAgate is a 7
736173
Diamonds are the hardest natural material; but there are harder man-made materials. \n\nAggregated Diamond Nanorods (ADNR) were developed last year. ADNR can scratch natural diamonds, thus ADNR is harder than natural diamond and consequently more resistant against abrasion. \n\npolyyne, a superhard molecular rod comprised of acetylene units - that resists 40 times more longitudinal compression than a diamond. Ironically, these glittery gems are comprised from the element carbon and have the weakest type of chemical bonds, while polyyne has the strongest bonds in carbon chemistry. \n\nI wasn't able to find a comparison of polyyne and ADNR, but I believe ADNR was developed first and held the title until polyyne was developed a short time later. I'm not positive about the order though. Either one is harder than my head which is saying something.
499679
Uranium, like all other heavier-than-iron elements, are created in the hearts of stars as they go supernova.  About ten billion years ago, a first generation supergiant star went supernova somewhere around here.  It seeded space with all of the elements other than hydrogen that were later swept up by gravity to form our own Star and Earth and the other planets of our solar system, as well as nearby stars like the Alpha Centauri system and Sirius.  (Hydrogen was made in the Big Bang.)\n\nOn Earth, uranium is generally found in isotopes U-235 and U-238 and to a lesser degree U-234.  It is highly prevalent, being found in most rock, although it was originally identified chemically as an extract of pitchblende.  It is most concentrated in uranium ore (.05-20% or 1-4 lbs of uranium oxide per ton of uranium ore, so that is the substance we mine for when we want uranium.\n\nUranium ore is present in most parts of the world, but the largest reserves are in Australia.  There's an excellent map at http://www.wise-uranium.org/umaps.html.  Select "Cumulative Uranium Production to 2004" and the various Uranium Resources options, which shows you the availability of uranium in terms of more or less concentrated uranium ore.
877658
It is held that more than 4.5 billion years ago, the surface of the Moon was a liquid magma ocean. Scientists think that one component of lunar rocks, called KREEP (potassium, rare earth elements, and phosphorus), represents the last chemical remnant of that magma ocean. KREEP is actually a composite of what scientists term incompatible elements: those that cannot fit into a crystal structure and thus were concentrated in the remaining magma. For the researchers, KREEP is a convenient tracer, useful for reporting the story of the volcanic history of the lunar crust and chronicling the frequency of impacts by comets and other celestial bodies.\n\nThe lunar crust is composed of a variety of major elements, such as oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, calcium, aluminium, but also contains important quantities of secondary elements, including titanium, uranium, thorium, potassium, and hydrogen. The Moon has a mean density of 3,346.2 kg/m³, making it the second densest moon in the solar system, after Io.\n\nA complete global mapping of the Moon for the abundance of major and minor elements has not yet been performed. However, some spacecraft have done so for portions of the Moon, or for certain elements. In particular, a gamma-ray spectrometer onboard the spacecraft Lunar Prospector has determined near-global abundances of iron, calcium, aluminum, magnesium, titanium, potasium, thorium, uranium, and hydrogen. The Clementine spacecraft has obtained near-global abundances for iron and titanium, but at a much higher spatial resolution.
1070133
oxygen, nitrogen, every fuckin mineral and more on the periodic table...take chemistry
754664
Los Alamos national lab has a good periodic table/ elemental factoids.\n\nLanthanum is La.  It is the beginning of the "Lanthanides".
517835
you mean ferrum it is nothing but the latin name of iron.\n\nIron is the most abundant metal on Earth, and is believed to be the tenth most abundant element in the universe. Iron is also the second most abundant element by mass, making up 34% of the mass of the Earth; the concentration of iron in the various layers of the Earth ranges from high (how much is "high?") at the inner core to about 5% in the outer crust. It is possible the Earth's inner core consists of a single iron crystal, although it is more likely to be a mixture of iron and nickel. The large amount of iron in the Earth is thought to create its magnetic field (you mean to say this isn't known for sure?).\n\nIron is a metal extracted from iron ore, and is almost never found in the free elemental state. In order to obtain elemental iron, the impurities must be removed by chemical reduction. Iron is used in the production of steel, an alloy or solid solution of different metals, and some non-metals, particularly carbon.\n\nNuclei of iron have some of the highest binding energies per nucleon, surpassed only by the nickel isotope 62Ni. The universally most abundant of the highly stable nucleides is, however, 56Fe. This is formed by nuclear fusion in the stars. Although a further tiny energy gain could be extracted by synthesizing 62Ni, conditions in stars are not right for this process to be favoured. When a very large star contracts at the end of its life, internal pressure and temperature rise, allowing the star to produce progressively heavier elements, despite these being less stable than the elements around mass number 60, known as the "iron group". This leads to a supernova.\n\nSome cosmological models with an open universe predict that there will be a phase where as a result of slow fusion and fission reactions, everything will become iron.
1025623
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. It accounts for about 75% of all elemental matter. And "pure" hydrogen is actually rare on earth as most of it is found in water.
720666
The heaviest man made element is 112 protons but is unnamed.  #111 is name Roentgenium.
255878
Iron. \n\nThat 46% figure for oxygen is not correct because it is only for the earth's crust. It does not include the mantle or the core. \n\nFor the entire planet iron makes up 35% of the mass of the planet and oxygen is only 30%. Silicon is 15%, magnesium 13%, and everything else is 7%. \n\nMy source is the USGS (which also cites the 46% oxygen for crust):\nhttp://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/office/ganderson/es10/lectures/lecture04/lecture04.html
310377
It depends on if you are looking at large quanities or just any ammount goes. It also depends on if you are looking at elements that are only found in compounds or not. Oxygen, hydrogen, argon, carbon, nitrogen, alluminium, silicon, iron, tugstan, lithium, potassum, titanium to name a few. almost all of the elements can be found near the earth's surface except those that are man made, usually the extremly heavy ones like plutonium.
444717
It is not a combination of iron and tin, or anything else besides protons, electrons, and neutrons.\n\nThere's a naturally occurring ore called bauxite, which was discovered near Les Baux in the south of France, which is refined to produce aluminum.\n\nAt this link   \n\nhttp://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/minerals/bauxite.html\n\nthere's a pie chart showing where it is mined today.  A lot of it comes from Australia, but that's not the only source.