Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Biogeochemistry

Early phosphorus redigested

Nature Geoscience volume 10, pages 75–76 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Atmospheric oxygen was maintained at low levels throughout huge swathes of Earth's early history. Estimates of phosphorus availability through time suggest that scavenging from anoxic, iron-rich oceans stabilized this low-oxygen world.

Phosphorus (P) is generally considered to be the ultimate limiting nutrient for primary productivity on geological timescales5. The bioavailability of P through time can thus be considered a key control on organic carbon (C) production and ultimately oxygenation. Reconstructing P concentrations in the ancient oceans is, however, notoriously difficult. Previously, the approach has been to measure the P content of iron-rich chemical sediments such as banded iron formations6,7, which are thought to reflect dissolved concentrations in the ocean at their time of formation. This has led to wildly variable results6,7,8, owing to the precise way in which dissolved phosphate concentrations are back-calculated from total P content in the rocks (Fig. 1). Furthermore, the temporal record of iron-rich marine chemical sediments is discontinuous, preventing reconstruction of dissolved phosphate concentrations across key intervals of Earth's history.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Reconstructions of oxygen, phosphorus and ocean redox conditions through time.

References

  1. Lyons, T. W., Reinhard, C. T. & Planavsky, N. J. Nature 506, 307–315 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Planavsky, N. J. et al. Science 346, 635–638 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Zhang, S. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113, 1731–1736 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Reinhard, C. T. et al. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature20772 (2016).

  5. Tyrrell, T. Nature 400, 525–531 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Bjerrum, C. J. & Canfield, D. E. Nature 417, 159–162 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Planavsky, N. J. et al. Nature 467, 1088–1090 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Jones, C., Nomosatryo, S., Crowe, S. A., Bjerrum, C. J. & Canfield, D. E. Geology 43, 135–138 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Ingall, E. D., Bustin, R. M. & van Cappellen, P. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 57, 303–316 (1993).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Poulton, S. W. & Canfield, D. E. Elements 7, 107–112 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Simon W. Poulton is at the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK,

    Simon W. Poulton

Authors
  1. Simon W. Poulton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Simon W. Poulton.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Poulton, S. Early phosphorus redigested. Nature Geosci 10, 75–76 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2884

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2884

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing