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What Connects Bones, Bird Poop, and Toxic Green Slime? Hint: Without It, Half of Us Wouldn't Be Alive Today

Gastropod

CHAPTER

The Origins of Phosphorus

Scientists at the time figured out that bones were rich in phosphorus, and this was why they were so amazing as fertilizers. People started searching for these super special and kind of unusual sedimentary rocks to find new sources of phosphorus. A huge deposit was found in Florida in the 1880s. It's more than a million acres of land filled with fossilized remains of long gone creatures like sabertooth tigers and giant manatees.

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