Plate tectonics may have started 400 million years earlier than we thought Minerals suggest large blocks of Earth’s crust moved around as early as 3.2 billion years ago ...

Its existence was previously not known because no new examples have been formed in millions of years. As a result, the new basalt type lay buried deep beneath sediment at the bottom of the ocean.

A new type of basalt created during large and exceptionally hot volcanic eruptions has been discovered beneath the Pacific Ocean.