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John Leyden at the Register provides Was Earth once covered in HELLFIRE? No – more like a wet Sunday night in Iceland
Geoboffins DEBUNK long-held scientific belief
Early Earth may have been less like the hellish realm of molten magma previously suspected but also distinct from the sort of environment found in modern-day Iceland, according to research by geologists.
The Earth had already formed oceans, continents and an active crustal plates by the time it was 500 million years old, scientists reckon. This view of the Hadean, Earth’s first geologic eon, has been refined by a fresh study comparing zircon crystals that formed during this time around four billion years ago with those formed in Iceland and zircon found in other contemporary environments. study concluded that although the early Earth was not covered in an ocean of molten magma, as thought as recently as 30 years ago, it wasn't quite like modern Iceland either, puncturing a favoured analogy among modern geologists.
It's always interesting how our views of the past are redefined by painstaking research. I wonder how the flat-earthers feel about this.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 17 2014, @10:41PM
What's wrong with using round numbers until more data and research can refine what we know? 4 billion years is such a long time ago it's amazing there's anything left to study from those times. It wasn't until 1958 that the idea of plate tectonics became generally accepted, because it was the best explanation of all kinds of puzzling data. That's only been 56 years ago, give geologists a break! Science has really been galloping forward, providing all kinds of new techniques, observations, and findings. There are mountains of data to sort through.
We now understand very well how the continents moved back to the time of Pangaea, between 300 and 200 million years ago, and we have a pretty good idea how they moved around from Pangaea back to Rodinia, about 1 billion years ago. Our knowledge of continental drift before Rodinia is much sketchier, but we have various ideas. That's excellent progress in just half a century, when we weren't sure that plate tectonics was a good explanation. We'll be piecing this puzzle together for a long time yet, testing out ideas about the early Earth.