Viral Lysis of Photosynthesizing Microbes As a Mechanism for Calcium Carbonate Nucleation in Seawater.

Removal of carbon through the precipitation and burial of calcium carbonate in marine sediments constitutes over 70% of the total carbon on Earth and is partitioned between coastal and pelagic zones. The precipitation of authigenic calcium carbonate in seawater, however, has been hotly debated because despite being in a supersaturated state, there is an absence of persistent precipitation. One of the explanations for this paradox is the geochemical conditions in seawater cannot overcome the activation energy barrier for the first step in any precipitation reaction; nucleation.