Nature · 1 July 2026 · From issue 02
Chemical clues in volcanic lava point to rock from Earth's first 100 million years still hiding deep underground.
Claudine Israel, Catherine Chauvel et al., Hadean bridgmanite in the source of a present-day ocean island, Nature.
Deep inside the Earth, tiny bits of very old rock seem to have survived since the planet's earliest days. Scientists measured chemical traces in lava from an underwater volcano near the Comoros islands. These traces show a special chemical signature. That signature could only have formed within the first 100 million years of Earth's history. Back then, the young planet was covered by an ocean of melted rock. As that molten ocean cooled, a mineral crystallized out of it and sank into the deep Earth. This ancient mineral may still be mixed into the mantle today. It may be far more common down there than scientists had thought.
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