Scientists find water was fueling volcanoes 3 billion years ago

Scientists find water was fueling volcanoes 3 billion years ago

Scientists find water was fueling volcanoes 3 billion years ago

Ancient rocks from Western Australia suggest water was reaching deep inside Earth more than three billion years ago, long before modern plate tectonics may have fully developed. Researchers propose that water-rich pieces of crust periodically sank into the mantle through a process they call “dripduction.” The buried water then helped produce magma and volcanic eruptions.