The Early Earth Was Blue, New Research Suggests

Our planet may have looked like this from a very early stage. Image courtesy of NASA.





Joel Kontinen

Models relying on evolution assert that Earth was a molten blob in its childhood. Long-agers call this period the Hadean after the Greek word Hades (Ἅιδης/ᾍδης), which also occurs in the Bible as a place of torment.

The problem with this view is that it is probably wrong.

Recently, Judith Coggon at the University of Bonn, Germany, and her colleagues published a paper in Nature Geoscience, suggesting that Earth was much cooler in its childhood – at least “200 million years” after its origin.

Coggon et al. base their conclusion on rocks found in Greenland. They believe that the rocks contain a chemical signature from the mantle hailing from “4.1 billion years” ago.

They see signs of “iron-loving minerals” in the rock. This suggests a more watery early Earth.

Thus, while the dates are gross exaggerations, the trend is roughly in agreement with what Genesis teaches about the early Earth as a partly watery planet.

”And God said, 'Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.' And it was so. God called the dry ground 'land,' and the gathered waters he called 'seas.' And God saw that it was good. ” (Genesis 1:9-10, NIV).

This is not the first study to challenge the Hades hypothesis. In 2010, Nora de Leeuw, a chemist at University College London, and her colleagues published a paper in the journal Chemical Communications, suggesting that Earth may have had liquid water from the very beginning.




Source:

Barras, Colin. 2013. Planet Earth was blue long before we knew. New Scientist 2932. (30 August).