Inside chlorophyll is the lamp of life and that lamp is magnesium. The capture of light energy from the sun is magnesium dependent. Magnesium is bound as the central atom of the porphyrin ring of the green plant pigment chlorophyll. Magnesium is the element that causes plants to be able to convert light into energy and chlorophyll is identical to hemoglobin except the magnesium atom at the center has been taken out and iron put in. The whole basis of life and the food chain is seen in the sunlight-chlorophyll-magnesium chain. Since animals and humans obtain their food supply by eating plants magnesium can be said to be the source of life for it is at the heart of chlorophyll and the process of photosynthesis.
A huge step forward for early life was the development of chlorophyll a molecule that captures light energy from the sun in a process called photosynthesis. Chlorophyll systems convert energy from visible light into small energy-rich molecules easy for cells to use. The harnessing of the energy of visible light led to a vast expansion of early life-forms. Fossilized layers three and half billion years old have been found with evidence of blue-green algae that lived on top of tidal rocks.
Magnesium is needed by plants to form chlorophyll which is the substance that makes plants green. Without magnesium sitting inside the heart of chlorophyll plants would not be able to take nutrition from the sun because the process of photosynthesis would not go on. When magnesium is deficient things begin to die. In reality one cannot take a breath move a muscle or think a thought without enough magnesium in our cells. Because magnesium is contained in chlorophyll it is considered an essential plant mineral salt.
Without chlorophyll plants are unable to convert sunlight and carbon dioxide. There is no life without magnesium.
Source: http://www.johnston-independent.com/magnesium.htm#.