Figure 5.

UV-Vis wavelength scans of filtered yeast RNA/pyrite suspensions taken as a function of time. 1.5 mg/L yeast RNA was exposed to pyrite (1 g/L) followed by periodic sampling. Wavelength scans were taken of the filtered samples. The loss of absorbance is putatively due to degradation of the nucleic acid bases. Background absorbance not associated with the absorbance peak at 260 nm (i.e., Fe(II) dissolved from pyrite or increasing absorbance at lower wavelengths due to RNA) has been subtracted from all of the curves. The raw UV-vis data and background corrected data are available as an additional file, Cohn_Fig 5 UV.Vis.XLS.