Scientists have found evidence in southern Greenland of ancient magma rocks roughly 3.7-billion-years-old, indicating that the Earth could have been entirely molten.
According to a study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers have reported that their analysis of the ancient rocks in the Isua Greenstone Belt, an area of volcanic rock in southern Greenland, contain traces of a magma ocean. These samples of basalt rock were found to have high levels of heavy iron isotopes.
Researchers identified both neodymium and hafnium isotopes, and rare tungsten isotopes that stem from isotopes that only existed during Earth’s first 45 million years.