How the Early Earth transitioned from an abiotic world to the modern biogeochemical Earth system remains unclear. Here, the authors show that colonization of a minor fraction of Archean landmasses by topsoil bacteria would have been enough to match the modern land-to-ocean nitrogen export of ammonium and nitrate.
- Christophe Thomazo
- Estelle Couradeau
- Ferran Garcia-Pichel
