The Lava That Doesn't Erupt Anymore

Volcanoes have been a persistent feature on Earth since the planet condensed out of the primordial nebula of our solar system. The scale and style of that volcanism has changed dramatically over that 4.5 billion years---heck, after Thera bumped into proto-Earth to form the Moon, we probably had a planet-wide lava lake as the molten Earth coalesced and cooled from the collision. However, we lack much of a record of that tumultuous time beyond a few zircon found in younger sediments. Figuring out what exactly the volcanism might have been like that far back is a little bit of scientific storytelling. If we look at the first few billion years of the planet, we can guess that we might have seen some very different kinds of volcanic eruptions. During the Archean Eon (~3.8 to 2.5 billion years ago), a type of lava that has been rarely seen since erupted in ...