Extreme melting event defines Earth's early history

Could Earth have had an even more violent infancy than previously imagined? New isotope data suggest that the Earth not only had a very violent beginning but also point to new information about our planet's chemical evolution.
New and precise measurements of a neodymium isotope ratio (¹⁴²Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd) led Maud Boyet and Rick Carlson of Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism to the discovery that all terrestrial rocks have an excess of ¹⁴²Nd compared to the expected building blocks of the planet. The results will appear in the June 16, 2005 edition of Science.