NATURAL VARIATIONS IN THE ISOTOPIC CONTENT of SULFUR AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE

Abstract

A mass spectrometer investigation has been made of the relative abundance of the sulfur Isotopes obtained from a wide variety of terres trial and msteoritic sources. Variations up to 6.5 and 3*25 percent have been found in the concentration of 8^ and S , respectively. This would mean a corresponding variation of 13 percent in the concentration of S^. The variations were determined with a precision of 0.1 percent. In general, sulfates are enriched in the heavier isotopes; sulfur of organic or bac terial origin is depleted in the heavier isotopes, whereas the isotopic content of meteorites is remarkably constant and coincides approximately with the average isotopic composition of terrestrial sulfur. A one to one correlation has been found between the isotopic abundance of the sulfur in sedimentary sulfides of marine origin and the deposition age of the sample. The close agreement between theoretical and experimental results indicates that these variations in the abundance of the sulfur isotopes are related to the differences in the chemical properties of isotopic sulfur compounds.