Lava floor of Earth: How a stronger crust of Lava set the stage for life on Earth

Earth is the only planet that has hosted and nurtured life forms for billions of ages. This planet, which was once a boiling geoid of lava and magma, got a new crust 4 to 4.5 billion years ago, which started its transformation into this blue planet. According to research published in Nature, it offered a new look at the transformation of the Earth and how it reached its present state. The study stated that the Earth's crust made of lava was fragile and prone to break. The earliest continents were entities in flux, and they continued to disappear and reappear as the crust repeatedly broke multiple times.

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According to theconversation.com, the Earth only has a few small crystals of mineral Zircon when it was 500 million years old. Over the next few billion years, more lava and magma solidified and worked as the base of the modern continent.

How the Earth was transformed

The research published in Nature found more details about how the Earth's crust was formed. The first formed crust was in existence between 4.5 and 4 billion years ago. It was fragile and was repeatedly destroyed. But, the crust gradually became stronger and solidified in the next billion years to form the continents' base.

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The modern crust of Earth is made with the continental crust and the dense oceanic crust lying below the oceans. According to theconversation.com,  Earth is also broken into movable tectonic plates which move slowly through the procedure of "continental drift."

When the plates collide, mountains are formed at the point of collision. These tectonic plates have dynamic movement, which helps to release the internal heat of the modern Earth, for example, the ring of fire pathway that lies in the pacific ocean.  As per the official source of National Geographic, this fire ring is a path with multiple active volcanoes. Here, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are frequent. This path helps in releasing the internal heat of the Earth and also protects the Earth's crust.

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The scientists presented a new model, as per the article, which tried to offer a reasonable explanation about how the primordial heat escaped from the earth. The earth was near 4x times hotter than its present form in its initial stage. They divided the layers of earth into three stages- the crust, mantle(upper mantle and lower mantle), and the core(outer core, inner core). The mantle lies below the crust at a depth of 10km to 100km. This model also showed how the primordial heat is released from the core and the mantle. This model can easily describe how the primordial heat was removed from the earth in its initial days.

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The melting lava that lay inside came out through the rigid mantle. This made the fragile mantle dry, rigid and it got welded to the crust. Hence, the crust became stronger and more durable and formed the base of the modern continents.

Earth: the initial life forms

The formation of life on earth was directly linked to the formation of this new crust. The rafts formed under the mantle protected the new crust. Furthermore, the rigid continents and large rock formations gradually eroded and weathered, and the eroded materials and minerals got deposited as sediment. This erosion also supplied more minerals and nutrients to the oceans.

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As the oceans became rich with minerals and chemicals, it became ideal for northing life forms. So, gradually the first life on earth was created inside the oceans.