Scientific consensuses ever held that the internal heat of the early Earth would have led to vigorous mixing, and perhaps even complete melting of the Earth. A new study is now reportedly suggests that earth’s mantle has never been completely melted.

Image Source/Credit: University of Maryland's News Desk

University of Maryland’s news desk reads:

“Unexpected new findings by a University of Maryland team of geochemists show that some portions of the Earth’s mantle (the rocky layer between Earth’s metallic core and crust) formed when the planet was much smaller than it is now, and that some of this early-formed mantle survived Earth’s turbulent formation, including a collision with another planet-sized body that many scientists believe led to the creation of the Moon.”

As cited on the news release, UMD Professor of Geology, Richard Walker, who led the research team, says:

“It is believed that Earth grew to its current size by collisions of bodies of increasing size, over what may have been as much as tens of millions of years, yet our results suggest that some portions of the Earth formed within 10 to 20 million years of the creation of the Solar System and that parts of the planet created during this early stage of construction remained distinct within the mantle until at least 2.8 billion years ago.”

Maryland team examined volcanic rocks that flourished in the first half of Earth’s history, the news release reveals, and found that these have a different type of composition than what they, or anyone, would have, expected. (Read the full release “Building Blocks of Early Earth Survived Collision that Created Moon” by Lee Tune of the University of Maryland’s news desk).