Several early periodic tables were published with arrangements similar in some degree to that of Earth Scientist's Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions. This list is arranged chronologically and annotated with comments regarding the similarity of these tables to the Earth Scientist's Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions. Note that this document certainly does not mention all published periodic tables; it is largely restricted to periodic tables for the earth sciences.
     Interestingly, some of the earliest tables (especially Grimm's) are the ones most hauntingly similar to the Earth Scientist's Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions published in 2003. It's also interesting to note that Americans have seemingly felt most bound by the conventional periodic table and the assumption that each element can only appear once in a table. Europeans, on the other hand, have been more willing to show elements in multiple locations on their tables.

Mendeleev, D., 1871, Zhurnal Russkoe Fiziko-Khimicheskoe Obshchestvo 3:25, and 1872, Die periodische Gesetzmassigkeit der chemischen Elemente: Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie Supplement VIII, 133-229. Mendeleev formulated a table with eight columns. Cu fell below K but offset from it, Zn below Mg but likewise offset, and so on. Thus Mendeleev's table, while odd to our eyes, in a sense distinguished between elements forming only hard cations and those forming intermediate to soft cations. U fell below W, a position that proves useful in the Earth Scientist's Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions.

Grimm, H.G. 1922, Periodisches System der Atomionen: Zeitschrift für Physykalische Chemie, v. 101, p. 410-413. Grimm's table rowed elements (implicitly, ions) in order of charge and so showed several elements twice. He also rowed the actinides in order after Fr⁺ and Ra²⁺. He thus took many of the steps used in the Earth Scientist's Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions. One result of this arrangement was that his table effectively separated the hard cations from most of the intermediate and soft cations, though without any labeled distinction.

Cartledge, G.H., 1928, Studies on the periodic system. I. The ionic potential as a periodic function: Journal of the American Chemical Society, v. 50, p. 2855-2863. Cartledge's table arranged ions in columns by charge and showed many elements twice, and he rowed the actinides with Fr⁺ and Ra²⁺. His table explicitly showed ionic potential. He too thus took many of the steps used in the Earth Scientist's Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions. However, Fe, Co, and Ni were absent from his table, seemingly because they didn't fit into the columns (Grimm similarly had Fe, Co, Ni, Ru, Rh, Pd, Is, Ir, and Pt in an isolated central block of his table). Cartledge's table also maintained Mendeleev's convention of putting Cu under K and so on, so that it did not adopt the long rows used by Grimm and used in most later tables.

Heald, M.T., 1954, A periodic table of elements for geologists: Journal of Geological Education, v. 2, p. 19-23. Heald's periodic table was arranged like the conventional periodic table, but with B and Al on the left side of the table. No element appeared more than once. His table showed the radii of ions graphically, as would that of Brownlow (see below), and showed two radii for V, Cr, Mn, and Fe.

Jaeger, J.L., 1957, La Géochimie: Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 118 p. Jaeger's table showed several elements twice so that, for example, the Li-Be-B-C-N-O-F and Na-Mg-Al-Si-P-S-Cl series could appear on the left side of the table. He designated B, C, N, O, F, P, S, and Cl at the right side as "transporteurs", akin to the sedimentophiles in the Szadeczky-Kardoss table (see below).

Mason, B., 1958, Principles of Geochemistry: New York, John Wiley & Sons, 310 p. Table 16 of Mason's widely-used textbook has a periodic table organized much like the conventional periodic table, but went one step further than Heald with B, C, Al, and Si on the left side of the table. As with Heald's table, no element appears more than once.

Szádeczky-Kardoss, E., 1959, Seltene Elemente und Geochemie: Freiberger Forschungshefte (Berlin), C58:5-19. This table showed Al and Si twice so that they could follow Na and Mg among the lithophiles, and identified B, C, N, O, F, P, S, Cl, Bi, I, and At as "sedimentophiles", much as they bear blue symbols in the Earth Scientist's Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions.

Tables adapted from Jaeger and Szádeczky-Kardoss are shown in one uniform format on pages 173 and 174 of Routhier, P., 1963, Le Gisements Metalliferes: Geologie et Principes de Recherche, Tome I: Paris, Masson el Cie, 867 p. The paper by Szádeczky-Kardoss was presented in French translation by J. Lombard in Chronique Mines, 1960, 288: 165-172.

Shaw, W.H.R., 1960. Studies in biogeochemistry-I: A biogeochemical periodic table. The data.: Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, v. 19, p.196-207. Shaw's table was organized exactly like the conventional periodic table but cluttered with data so much as to make the Earth Scientist's Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions seem sparsely annotated and easy to read.

Broecker, W.S., and Peng, T.-H., 1982, Tracers in the Sea: Palisades, N.Y., Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, 690 p. Broecker and Peng (p. 7) showed an abbreviated (thirty-element) periodic table on which different oxidation states and/or speciations were given. Their table also showed which consituents were biounlimited or biolimited in the oceans (largely like the green and blue symbols of the new table).

Brownlow, A.H., 1996, Geochemistry (second edition): Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice-Hall, 580 p. Brownlow's Figure 5-6 was a periodic table using the conventional arrangement, but it used circles to show ionic radii and so had two circles for Ti, V, Mn, Fe, and S (thus going a bit farther than Heald). His table had the actinides below the main table but contiguous to it, so that Th⁴⁺ fell directly below Hf⁴⁺. However, that may have only been by chance, because while U correspondingly fell below W, only U⁴⁺ was shown below W⁶⁺.  

Back to the main page for the Earth Scientist's Periodic Table of the Elements and Their Ions.
e-mail to Railsback (rlsbk@gly.uga.edu)
Railsback's main web page
UGA Geology Department web page