Is Cerium IN or ON Apatites of biological origin in marine sediments?

Discover the location and chemical nature of cerium in Rare Earth element rich bio-apatites in marine sediments in our publication in Communications Earth & Environment. In this article in strong collaboration with Alain Manceau (ERC DEEP-SEE), we finally publish the story of cerium in (or we should rather say on) biogenic apatite. Indeed, detailed experiments conclusively demonstrate that cerium is not inside the apatite structure, but forms phosphate precipitates on the nano-apatite crystals.