Calcium is a chemical element with symbol Ca and atomic number 20. Calcium is a soft gray alkaline earth metal, fifth-most-abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust. The ion Ca2+ is also the fifth-most-abundant dissolved ion in seawater by both molarity and mass, after sodium, chloride, magnesium, and sulfate.[4] Free calcium metal is too reactive to occur in nature. Calcium is produced in supernova nucleosynthesis.
Calcium is essential for living organisms, in particular in cell physiology, where movement of the calcium ion into and out of the cytoplasm functions as a signal for many cellular processes. As a major material used in mineralization of bone, teeth and shells, calcium is the most abundant metal by mass in many animals.
Calcium is the fifth-most-abundant element by mass in the human body, where it is an important cellular ionic messenger with many functions. Calcium also serves as a structural element in bone. It is the relatively high-atomic-number calcium in the skeleton that causes bone to be radio-opaque. Of the human body's solid components after drying and burning of organics (as for example, after cremation), about a third of the total "mineral" mass remaining is the approximately one kilogram of calcium that composes the average skeleton (the remainder being mostly phosphorus and oxygen).
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