Evidence from analysis of rocks in Australia have repainted our picture of the early earth. Until recently it was taken for granted that the earth, from birth 4.5 billion years ago for about 700 million years, was a hellish place of heat and flames. Geologists now almost universally agree that by 4.2 billion years ago, the Earth was a pretty placid place, with both land and oceans. Instead of hellishly hot, it may have frozen over. Because the young Sun put out 30% less energy than it does today, temperatures on Earth might have been cold enough for parts of the surface to have been covered by expanses of ice.
See The New York Times’ A New Picture of the Early Earth here.
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