Isotope fractionation Isotope fractionation Isotope fractionation describes processes that affect the relative abundance of isotopes, often used in isotope geochemistry. Normally, the focus is on stable isotopes of the same element. Isotopic fractionation in the natural environment can be measured by isotope analysis, using isotope-ratio mass spectrometry, to separate different element isotopes on the basis of their mass-to-charge ratio, an important tool to understand natural systems. For example, in biochemistry processes cause a fluctuation in the amount of isotopes of carbon ratios incorporated into a biological being. The difference between the true amount of carbon and the amount in the plant is
Standard atomic weight "atomic" either, as it does not correspond to the property of any individual atom. The same argument could be made against "relative atomic mass" used in this sense. IUPAC publishes one formal value for each stable element, called the "standard atomic weight". Any updates are published biannually (in uneven years). The last change was published in 2015, setting a new value for ytterbium In 2017, no changes were published. The value published can have and uncertainty be an "interval" like for neon: , or can be an interval, like for boron: [10.806, 10.821]. Next to these 84 values, IUPAC also