[Robert A Cook PE]

Certainly: Gaseous neon10 for example, should be much richer than it is on earth, but was was present been blown further out. Of course, that means even more fusion reactions must be added to the missing 10^40 that we can measure to account for the "missing" nuclei.

The lighter elements, particularly those matching the He4/2 (stable) sets, form the most common elements. I ignored (deliberately) the 99% of the universe that is H and He. Those (their mass ratios) are readily explained by the current theory: In fact, their very abundance is why the current theory appears strained by the "missing" sources for the 10^30 kilograms of elements that ARE present.

But, as Einstein pointed out when people criticized his theory of relativity, the correct theory must work for all observations, not just the 99% that fit the data.

[NicknamedBob]

Shouldn't the relative presence or scarcity of various elements always be measured in terms of Iron?

Anyplace where iron can be found, heavier and lighter elements should exist also. Half of Earth is iron. The rest is all the other stuff.

Except for the scarcity of lighter elements, Earth appears to show a proper spectrum of elements, from the ubiquitous lighter weight oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, on up through medium weight sulfur and iron, and then into more rare elements such as gold and "rare earth" elements.

That's because it's a planet. Elementary distributions will differ between stars, protostars, and planets.

One could even theorize that all planets formed from cometary materials. Then you would not need so many Supernovas.

Also, if stars were very much closer together, an exploding supernova might have converted ordinary stars around it into a well-distributed mix of various elements.