8
O
Oxygen
nonmetal
Discovered : Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1772) and Joseph Priestley (1774), independently.
Found in : Virtually all minerals: silicates, oxides, carbonates.
Used for : Respiration, combustion, steel production, water treatment.
Remarkable : The most abundant element in the Earth's crust by mass (46%). Without it, rock-forming chemistry as we know it would not exist.
Minerals containing Oxygen
