A unique rock formation in China holds clues that tectonic plates subducted, or went underneath other plates, during the Archean eon (4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago), just as they do nowadays ...

A new study has revealed details about the composition of Earth's atmosphere during the Archean eon, which lasted from around 4 billion years ago to 2.4 billion years ago.

Furthermore, Archean tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite (TTG) rocks would result from partial melting of the over-thick basaltic oceanic crust at convergent plate margins.

An artist’s illustration of Earth as it may have been during the Archean eon between 3.8 billion and 2.5 billion years ago, a time of violent asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions. Back then ...

By the end of the Archean, the Earth would have lost that ruddy glow. Around 2.4 billion years ago, photosynthesizing microbes began pumping large amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere.

By the end of the Archean, as solar radiation grew, only up to 300 times preindustrial CO 2 would have been needed. But as with the ammonia hypothesis, there are hitches.

Kasbohm and colleagues from Princeton, Yale, and MIT set out to learn about the nature of Archean plate tectonics by pairing precise data for the formation of Archean basalt lavas with ...