The first 1.5 billion years of Earth’s evolution is subject to considerable uncertainty due to the lack of any significant rock record prior to four billion years ago and a very limited record until about three billion years ago. Rocks of this age are usually extensively altered making comparisons to modern rock quite difficult. In new research conducted at LSU, scientists have found evidence showing that komatiites, three-billion-year old volcanic rock found within the Earth’s mantle, had a different composition than modern ones. Their discovery may offer new information about the first one billion years of Earth’s development and early origins of life. Results of the team’s work has been published in the October 2017 edition of Nature Geoscience.