text: Iron (Fe) is the most abundant element in the Earth and the fourth most abundant element in the crust, approximately 5 percent by mass. Due to the abundance of iron and its role in biological systems, the transition and mineralogical stages of iron have played a key role in Earth surface systems. It played a larger role in the geological past in marine geochemistry, as evidenced by the deposits of Precambrian iron-rich sediments. The redox transformation of Fe(II) to Fe(III), or vice versa, is vital to a number of biological and element cycling processes. The reduction of Fe(III) is seen to oxidize sulfur (from HS to SO), which is a central process in marine sediments. Many of the first metalloproteins consisted of iron-sulphur complexes formed during photosynthesis. Iron is the main redox metal in biological systems. In proteins, it is found in a variety of sites and cofactors, including, for instance, haem groups, Fe–O–Fe sites, and iron–sulfur clusters.
  The prevalence of iron is apparently due to the large availability of Fe(II) in the initial evolution of living organisms, before the rise of photosynthesis and an increase in atmospheric oxygen levels which resulted in the precipitation of iron in the environment as Fe(OH). It has flexible redox properties because such properties are sensitive to ligand coordination, including geometry. Iron can be also used in enzymes due to its Lewis acid properties, for example in nitrile hydratase. Iron is frequently found in mononuclear sites in the reduced Fe(II) form, and functions in dioxygen activation; this function is used as a major mechanism adopted by living organisms to avoid the kinetic barrier hindering the transformation of organic compounds by O. Iron can be taken up selectively as ferredoxins, Fe-O-Fe (hemerythrin and ribonucleotide reductase), Fe (many oxidases), apart from iron porphyrin. Variation in the related proteins with any one of these chemical forms of iron has produced a wide range of enzymes. All of these arrangements are modified to function both in the sense of reactivity and the positioning of the protein in the cell. Iron can have various redox and spin states, and it can be held in many stereochemistries.