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by jessriedel 898 days ago
There are lots of natural processes that will tend to sort atoms by density or chemical type, e.g., heavier things settle downward. That's why the Earth's core is a very different composition than its crust.
2 comments

There are also centrifugal forces at play, meaning heavier elements get also pushed upward.
Heavier phases settle. Heavier elements will rise to the surface if they go into lower density phases. This is exactly what happened with uranium, which is concentrated by a factor of 1000 in the Earth's continental crust.