Matt Pasek from NAI’s University of Arizona Team recently published a paper in PNAS positing that the geochemistry of phosphorus on the early Earth was controlled by reduced oxidation state phosphorus compounds such as phosphite, rather than orthophosphate. This alternate view of early Earth phosphorus geochemistry provides an unexplored route to the formation of pertinent prebiotic phosphorus compounds, suggests a facile reaction pathway to condensed phosphates, and is consistent with the biochemical usage of reduced oxidation state phosphorus compounds in life today.

Click here to view the abstract.