When the early Earth’s magma ocean crystallized 4.4 billion years ago, the deep mantle trapped an ocean’s worth of water, ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. New model suggests an ocean of magma formed within the first few hundred million years of Earth's ...

Earth’s deep interior still shapes the world above your feet. Water trapped far below the surface helps control how rocks ...

Today, oceans cover about 70% of Earth’s surface. This stark contrast has long driven scientific interest in how water ...

Previous research estimated that it took hundreds of million years for the ancient Earth's magma ocean to solidify, but new research narrows these large uncertainties down to less than just a couple ...

A molten lava world cloaked in a thick envelope of vaporized rock could be the strongest evidence we have yet of a rocky ...

Some 4.6 billion years ago, Earth was nothing like the gentle blue planet we know today. Frequent and violent celestial impacts churned its surface and interior into a seething ocean of magma—an ...

Magma flowed into the dike beneath Grindavík at a rate almost 100 times higher than what was seen in the eruptions that took place between 2021 and 2023. When you purchase through links on our site, ...

Earth held a deep ocean of magma beneath its surface in its early history, new research finds, potentially explaining odd anomalies seen in the mantle today. This basal magma ocean has been hotly ...

An illustration of Earth as it existed during part of its formation billions of years ago, when an ocean of magma covered the surface of the planet and stretched thousands of miles deep into the core.

Early in the formation of Earth, an ocean of magma covered the planet’s surface and stretched thousands of miles deep into its core. The rate at which that “magma ocean” cooled affected the formation ...