Marine phosphate availability and the chemical origins of life on Earth

Oceans may be the solution to the primordial phosphorus problem

27 December 2022

The primordial oceans may have held enough phosphorus to meet the needs of emerging life on Earth.

Phosphorus is an essential element for life. In addition, experiments indicate that it may have been needed to make key biomolecules during the early days of life on Earth. The trouble is that phosphorus was thought to have been in short supply under primordial conditions.

Now, a team that included a researcher from the University of Cape Town in South Africa has shown that high concentrations of iron ions (Fe²⁺) — a neglected component in previous studies — boost the amount of phosphorus seawater can hold by thousands, or even tens of thousands, of times.

The results thus suggest that seawater could have been an important source of phosphorus. They could also be pertinent to the search for life on other planets, including Mars.

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References

1. Nature Communications 13, 5162 (2022). doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32815-x