Iron peak
comparatively high abundance of elements with atomic numbers near iron.
The iron peak is a local maximum in the vicinity of Fe (Cr, Mn, Fe, Co and Ni) on the graph of the abundances of the chemical elements in the Solar System.
For elements lighter than iron on the periodic table, nuclear fusion releases energy. For iron, and for all of the heavier elements, nuclear fusion consumes energy. Chemical elements up to the iron peak are produced in ordinary stellar nucleosynthesis, with the alpha elements being particularly abundant. Some heavier elements are produced by less efficient processes such as the r-process and s-process. Elements with atomic numbers close to iron are produced in large quantities in supernovae due to explosive oxygen and silicon fusion, followed by radioactive decay of nuclei such as Nickel-56. On average, heavier elements are less abundant in the universe, but some of those near iron are comparatively more abundant than would be expected from this trend.
Binding energy
A graph of the nuclear binding energy per nucleon for all the elements shows a sharp increase to a peak near nickel and then a slow decrease to heavier elements. Increasing values of binding energy represent energy released when a collection of nuclei is rearranged into another collection for which the sum of nuclear binding energies is higher. Light elements such as hydrogen release large amounts of energy (a big increase in binding energy) when combined to form heavier nuclei.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Iron peak” is comparatively high abundance of elements with atomic numbers near iron. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Iron, peak and comparatively, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q617151. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Iron peak” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.