GEOLOGISTS have found new evidence that water was already influencing Earth’s interior and volcanic activity more than three billion years ago, based on analysis of some of the planet’s oldest volcanic rocks.
The Australian-led study analyzed ancient rocks from the state of Western Australia’s Pilbara Craton and found signs that water had travelled deep beneath Earth’s surface before helping to generate magmas that formed volcanoes like those found in today’s Pacific “Ring of Fire,” according to a statement released by Adelaide University on Wednesday. The findings, published in Nature Communications, suggest that Earth was already undergoing a form of the water-recycling processes that shape the planet today, despite conditions being dramatically different during the planet’s infancy.
The research provides a rare window into Earth’s distant past, said Adelaide University geochemist Eric Vandenburg, who led the study.
Xinhua
#TheGlobalNewLightOfMyanmar