Secrets of Earth’s birth carried in lava jets from planet’s core

It was there at the birth of our planet 4.5 billion years ago. Now we know how magma from that formative period has survived to the present day, occasionally making it to the surface. And the tale it tells should help us better understand Earth’s formation.

“This deep reservoir is a time capsule preserving signatures of the earliest history of the Earth that are not recorded in any other part of the planet that we have access to,” says Matt Jackson at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Read more.