Over 4.6 billion years ago, the early Earth emerged from a swirling disk of gas and dust encircling the young sun. This primordial material collided and coalesced, forming larger bodies through the ...

Computational modeling shows that plate tectonics weren't necessary for early continents. The formation of Earth's continents billions of years ago set the stage for life to thrive. But scientists ...

New research has dramatically reshaped our understanding of Earth’s early geological history, overturning traditional beliefs about how the planet’s first continents came into being. Researchers from ...

New research sheds light on the earliest days of the earth's formation and potentially calls into question some earlier assumptions in planetary science about the early years of rocky planets.

The history of Earth's continents might be different from what we first thought. The most popular theory of how the continents formed billions of years ago may not be right, according to a paper in ...

Violent collisions between the growing Earth and other objects in the solar system generated significant amounts of iron vapor, according to a new study by LLNL scientist Richard Kraus and colleagues.