Traces of Earth's primordial magma ocean discovered in lava from a modern volcanic eruption

In May 2018, the island of Mayotte, between Madagascar and Mozambique, began to experience a series of earthquakes that led to the discovery of an underwater volcano, now called Fani Maoré.

Multiple scientific expeditions followed, taking samples of the recently erupted lava.

When a team of researchers analyzed 13 samples from Fani Maoré and eight additional samples from eastern Mayotte, they discovered remnants of a mineral called bridgmanite that they believe came from Earth's earliest geologic time period, the Hadean eon.

Their findings were recently published in Nature. ...