The biological cycling of phosphorus on Earth can be traced back to early Archean if the assemblage of carbon isotopic composition of graphite plus apatite could be used as the record of the earliest life.It is until recently that the mineralogical features of apatite in early Precambrian sedimentary rocks were found related to biogeochemical cycling.In this study,we report apatite nanocrystals with highly similar crystallinities and genetic patterns in Pliocene sediments,Mesoproterozoic to Lower Cambrian black shale and phosphorites,and Late Archean to early Paleoproterozoic banded iron formations (BIFs).
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