Early Earth buried under global ocean of lava

By William Atkins
Friday, 28 November 2008 21:26

Science - Climate

According to an Australian ancient-earth researcher, about two to three billion years ago most of the Earth was buried under six to nine miles (10 to 15 kilometers) of lava from a series of volcanic explosions.


Australian geoscientist Geoffrey F. Davies authored the paper “Episodic layering of the early mantle by the ‘basalt barrier’ mechanism,” which appeared in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters online on October 5, 2008 and in print form on November 15, 2008.

Dr. Davies is associated with the Research School of Earth Science (RSES), Australian National University (ANU), in Canberra, Australia.

The results were compiled through computer models made to accurately simulate the Earth’s interior.

The modeling used by Davies showed that the volcanic activity occurred when extreme radioactive-generated heat from the deep interior of the Earth built up until it finally caused the volcanism to erupt on the surface of Earth.

This explosive activity happened about two to three billion years ago, and each episode lasted for approximately one hundred million years.

Thereafter, the volcanoes went dormant but eventually repeated the cycle after about 100,000 to 150,000 million years.

Each episode destroyed most of the microscopic life on Earth, but the life that remained, only the strongest species, was able to recover and survive during the dormancy of the volcanoes.

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