1 billion-year-old cell contents preserved in monazite and xenotime.

David Wacey, Eva Sirantoine, Martin Saunders, Paul Strother

Open access · goldAbstract read

In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

1citing papers in PubMed

1.5field-weighted citation impact, top 18% of its field

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 11 citations in OpenAlex.

Exploring productivity hotspots in the Precambrian biosphere.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
Review

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

David WaceyCentre for Microscopy Characterisation and Analysis, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia. David.Wacey@uwa.edu.au.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7124-0701

Eva SirantoineCentre for Microscopy Characterisation and Analysis, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia.

Martin SaundersCentre for Microscopy Characterisation and Analysis, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Perth, WA, 6009, Australia.

Paul StrotherDepartment of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Weston Observatory of Boston College, 381 Concord Road, Weston, MA, 02493, USA.

The University of Western Australia · AUBoston College · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Exceptional microfossil preservation, whereby sub-cellular details of an organism are conserved, remains extremely rare in the Precambrian rock record. We here report the first occurrence of exceptional cellular preservation by the rare earth element (REE) phosphates monazite and xenotime. This occurs in ~1 billion-year-old lake sediments where REEs were likely concentrated by local erosion and drainage into a closed lacustrine basin. Monazite and xenotime preferentially occur inside planktonic cells where they preserve spheroidal masses of plasmolyzed cell contents, and occasionally also membranous fragments. They have not been observed associated with cell walls or sheaths, which are instead preserved by clay minerals or francolite. REE phosphates are interpreted to be the earliest minerals precipitated in these cells after death, with their loci controlled by the micro-scale availability of inorganic phosphate (P

Identifiers

PMID31227773

DOI10.1038/s41598-019-45575-4

PMCPMC6588638

OpenAlexW2950338901

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata

LicenceCC BY

Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.