Early Ocean Cooled Earlier Than Previously Believed

The scalding-hot sea that supposedly covered the early Earth may in fact never have existed, according to a new study by Stanford University researchers who analyzed isotope ratios in 3.4 billion-year-old ocean floor rocks. Their findings suggest that the early ocean was much more temperate and that, as a result, life likely diversified and spread across the globe much sooner in Earth's history than has been generally theorized. Prof. Page Chamberlain, Environmental Earth System Science, looks at a computer examination of an undersea rocks revealing scientific secrets 3.5 billion years old. Credit: Stanford University