Fig. 3: Estimated P(III) and P(V) concentrations in ocean at the onset of the Great Oxidation Event.
From: Bioavailable phosphite in the surface ocean during the Great Oxidation Event
‘Arc.’ and ‘Prot.’ stand for ‘Archean’ and ‘Proterozoic’, respectively. The boxplots show the estimated concentrations of P(III) and P(V) in two extreme scenarios, (1) and (5), which provide the highest and lowest possible concentrations of P(III), respectively. In scenario 5, all the P(III) assumed to be metamorphic implying P(III) estimation in Precambrian seawater is not possible. The inset box plot shows the P(III) proportions of total dissolved inorganic P (P(III) + P(V)) in scenario 1. The green lines and arrows show the estimated P(V) concentrations in the Archean and around the Neoarchean-Paleoproterozoic boundary by previous geochemical3,25,50,51,59,81 and genomic approaches6. The grey arrow is the estimation of P(III) in this study.
