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
Atomic mass or standard atomic weight, by several mass units. Atomic masses expressed in unified atomic mass units (i.e. relative isotopic masses) are always close to whole-number values, but never (except in the case of carbon-12) exactly a whole number, for two reasons: The ratio of atomic mass to mass number (number of nucleons) varies from about 0.99884 for Fe to 1.00782505 for H. Any mass defect due to nuclear binding energy is experimentally a small fraction (less than 1%) of the mass of equal number of free nucleons. When compared to the average mass per nucleon in carbon-12, which is moderately