Page "Stable isotope" Paragraph 4

Commonly analysed stable isotope systems include those of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and sulfur.

These isotope systems for lighter elements that exhibit more than one primordial isotope for each element, have been under investigation for many years in order to study processes of isotope fractionation in natural systems.

The long history of study of these elements is in part because the proportions of stable isotopes in these light and volatile elements is relatively easy to measure.

However, recent advances in mass spectrometry ( i. e. multiple-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry ) now enable the measurement of isotope ratios in heavier stable elements, such as iron, copper, zinc, molybdenum, etc.