ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2025
Evolution of the iodine cycle and the late stabilization of the Earth's ozone layer.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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.
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.
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- UV photodamage pathways and the evolutionary selection of thymine over uracil in early genetic systems.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Dissimilatory iodate-reducing microorganisms inhabit marine oxygen minimum zones.National science review · 2026Article
- A Twist in Electronic Relaxation of Pyrimidine Nucleosides and Nucleotides: Impact of C5 Methylation on Nonadiabatic Transition and Photohydration Damage.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2026Article
- Iodine Biogeochemical Cycle and Microbial Bioremediation of Radioactive Iodine-129.Journal of microbiology and biotechnology · 2025Review
- A reassessment of the "hard-steps" model for the evolution of intelligent life.Science advances · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The origin of complex life and the evolution of terrestrial ecosystems are fundamental aspects of the natural history on Earth. Here, we present evidence for a protracted stabilization of the Earth's ozone layer. The destruction of atmospheric ozone today is inherently linked to the cycling of marine and atmospheric iodine. Supported by multiple independent lines of geological evidence and examined through an iodine mass balance model, we find that elevated marine iodide content prevailed through most of Earth's history. Since the rise of oxygen ~2.4 billion years ago, high marine iodide concentrations would have led to significant inorganic iodine emissions to the atmosphere, facilitating catalytic ozone destruction and resulting in atmospheric ozone instability with periodic or persistently lower ozone levels. At a global scale, unstable and low ozone levels likely persisted for about two billion years until the early Phanerozoic, roughly 0.5 billion years ago. The delayed stabilization of the Earth's ozone layer holds significant implications for the tempo and direction of the evolution of life, in particular life on land.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.