New Australian National University research is set to radically overturn the conventional wisdom that early Earth was a hellish planet barren of continents.
An international research team led by Professor Mark Harrison of the Research School of Earth Sciences analysed unique 4 to 4.35 billion-year-old minerals from outback Australia and found evidence that a fringe theory detailing the development of continents during the first 500 million years of Earth history – the Hadean (‘hellish’) Eon – is likely to be correct.