Isotopes of osmium

Osmium (Os) has seven naturally-occurring isotopes, 5 of which are stable: ¹⁸⁷Os, ¹⁸⁸Os, ¹⁸⁹Os, ¹⁹⁰Os, and (most abundant) ¹⁹²Os. The other two, ¹⁸⁴Os and ¹⁸⁶Os, have enormously long half-lives and for practical purposes can be considered to be stable as well. ¹⁸⁷Os is the daughter of ¹⁸⁷Re (half-life 4.56 x 10¹⁰ years) and is most often measured in an ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os ratio. This ratio, as well as the ¹⁸⁷Re/¹⁸⁷Os ratio, have been used extensively in dating terrestrial as well as meteoric rocks. It has also been used to measure the intensity of continental weathering over geologic time and to fix minimum ages for stabilization of the mantle roots of continental cratons. However, the most notable application of Os in dating has been in conjunction with iridium, to analyze the layer of shocked quartz along the K-T boundary that marks the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Standard atomic mass: 190.23(3) u

Additional recommended knowledge

How to quickly check pipettes?

Better weighing performance in 6 easy steps

Guide to balance cleaning: 8 simple steps

Table

Notes

• Evaluated isotopic composition is for most but not all commercial samples.
• The precision of the isotope abundances and atomic mass is limited through variations. The given ranges should be applicable to any normal terrestrial material.
• Geologically exceptional samples are known in which the isotopic composition lies outside the reported range. The uncertainty in the atomic mass may exceed the stated value for such specimens.
• Values marked # are not purely derived from experimental data, but at least partly from systematic trends. Spins with weak assignment arguments are enclosed in parentheses.
• Uncertainties are given in concise form in parentheses after the corresponding last digits. Uncertainty values denote one standard deviation, except isotopic composition and standard atomic mass from IUPAC which use expanded uncertainties.

References

• Isotope masses from Ame2003 Atomic Mass Evaluation by G. Audi, A.H. Wapstra, C. Thibault, J. Blachot and O. Bersillon in Nuclear Physics A729 (2003).
• Isotopic compositions and standard atomic masses from Atomic weights of the elements. Review 2000 (IUPAC Technical Report). Pure Appl. Chem. Vol. 75, No. 6, pp. 683-800, (2003) and Atomic Weights Revised (2005).
• Half-life, spin, and isomer data selected from these sources. Editing notes on this article's talk page.
  • Audi, Bersillon, Blachot, Wapstra. The Nubase2003 evaluation of nuclear and decay properties, Nuc. Phys. A 729, pp. 3-128 (2003).
  • National Nuclear Data Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory. Information extracted from the NuDat 2.1 database (retrieved Sept. 2005).
  • David R. Lide (ed.), Norman E. Holden in CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 85th Edition, online version. CRC Press. Boca Raton, Florida (2005). Section 11, Table of the Isotopes.