We address the first several hundred million years of Earth's history. The Moonforming impact left Earth enveloped in a hot silicate atmosphere that cooled and condensed over ∼1,000 yrs. As it cooled the Earth degassed its volatiles into the atmosphere. It took another ∼2 Myrs for the magma ocean to freeze at the surface. The cooling rate was determined by atmospheric thermal blanketing. Tidal heating by the new Moon was a major energy source to the magma ocean. After the mantle solidified geothermal heat became climatologically insignificant, which allowed the steam atmosphere to condense, and left behind a ∼100 bar, ∼500 K CO 2 atmosphere. Thereafter cooling was governed by how quickly CO 2 was removed from the atmosphere. If subduction were efficient this could have K. Zahnle ( ) K. Zahnle et al.taken as little as 10 million years. In this case the faint young Sun suggests that a lifeless Earth should have been cold and its oceans white with ice. But if carbonate subduction were inefficient the CO 2 would have mostly stayed in the atmosphere, which would have kept the surface near ∼500 K for many tens of millions of years. Hydrous minerals are harder to subduct than carbonates and there is a good chance that the Hadean mantle was dry. Hadean heat flow was locally high enough to ensure that any ice cover would have been thin (<5 m) in places. Moreover hundreds or thousands of asteroid impacts would have been big enough to melt the ice triggering brief impact summers. We suggest that plate tectonics as it works now was inadequate to handle typical Hadean heat flows of 0.2-0.5 W/m 2 . In its place we hypothesize a convecting mantle capped by a ∼100 km deep basaltic mush that was relatively permeable to heat flow. Recycling and distillation of hydrous basalts produced granitic rocks very early, which is consistent with preserved >4 Ga detrital zircons. If carbonates in oceanic crust subducted as quickly as they formed, Earth could have been habitable as early as 10-20 Myrs after the Moon-forming impact.

Oceanic plateaus form by mantle processes distinct from those forming oceanic crust at divergent plate boundaries. Eleven drillsites into igneous basement of Kerguelen Plateau and Broken Ridge, including seven from the recent Ocean Drilling Program Leg 183 (1998^99) and four from Legs 119 and 120 (1987^88), show that the dominant rocks are basalts with geochemical characteristics distinct from those of mid-ocean ridge basalts. Moreover, the physical characteristics of the lava flows and the presence of wood fragments, charcoal, pollen, spores and seeds in the shallow water sediments overlying the igneous basement show that the growth rate of the plateau was sufficient to form subaerial landmasses. Most of the southern Kerguelen Plateau formed at V110 Ma, but the uppermost submarine lavas in the northern Kerguelen Plateau erupted during Cenozoic time. These results are consistent with derivation of the plateau by partial melting of the Kerguelen plume. Leg 183 provided two new major observations about the final growth stages of the Kerguelen Plateau. 1: At several locations, volcanism ended with explosive eruptions of volatilerich, felsic magmas; although the total volume of felsic volcanic rocks is poorly constrained, the explosive nature of the eruptions may have resulted in globally significant effects on climate and atmospheric chemistry during the late-stage, subaerial growth of the Kerguelen Plateau. 2: At one drillsite, clasts of garnet^biotite gneiss, a continental rock, occur in a fluvial conglomerate intercalated within basaltic flows. Previously, geochemical and geophysical evidence has been used to infer continental lithospheric components within this large igneous province. A continental geochemical signature in an oceanic setting may represent deeply recycled crust incorporated into the Kerguelen plume or continental fragments dispersed during initial formation of the Indian Ocean during breakup of Gondwana. The clasts of garnet^biotite gneiss are the first unequivocal evidence of continental crust in this oceanic plateau. We propose that during initial breakup between India and Antarctica, the spreading center jumped northwards transferring slivers of the continental Indian plate to oceanic portions of the Antarctic plate. ß

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Abstract. High-degree melting of hot dry Hadean mantle at ocean ridges and plumes resulted in a crust about 30 km thick, overlain in places by extensive and thick mafic volcanic plateaus. Continental crust, by contrast, was relatively thin and mostly submarine. At constructive and destructive plate boundaries, and above the many mantle plumes, acidic hydrothermal springs at ∼400 • C contributed Fe and other transition elements as well as P and H 2 to the deep ocean made acidulous by dissolved CO 2 and minor HCl derived from volcanoes. Away from ocean ridges, submarine hydrothermal fluids were cool (≤100 • C), alkaline (pH ∼10), highly reduced and also H 2 -rich. Reaction of solvents in this fluid with those in ocean water was catalyzed in a hydrothermal mound, a natural self-restoring flow reactor and fractionation column developed above the alkaline spring. The mound consisted of brucite, Mg-rich clays, ephemeral carbonates, Fe-Ni sulfide and green rust. Acetate and glycine were the main products, some of which were eluted to the ocean. The rest, along with other organic byproducts were retained and concentrated within Fe-Ni sulfide compartments. These compartments, comprising the natural hydrothermal reactor, consisted partly of greigite (Fe 5 NiS 8 ). It was from reactions between organic modules confined within these inorganic compartments that the first prokaryotic organism evolved. These acetogenic precursors to the bacteria diversified and migrated down the mound and into the ocean floor to inaugurate the "deep biosphere". Once there they were protected from cataclysmic heating events caused by large meteoritic impacts. Geodynamic forces led to the eventual obduction of the deep biosphere into the photic zone where, initially protected by a thin veneer of sediment, the use of solar energy was mastered and photosynthesis emerged. The further evolution to oxygenic photosynthesis was effected as catalytic [Mn,Ca] -bearing molecules that otherwise wouldCorrespondence to: N. T. Arndt (arndt@ujf-grenoble.fr) have been interred in minerals such as ranciéite and hollandite in shallow marine manganiferous sediments, were sequestered and invaginated within the cyanobacterial precursor where, energized by light, they could oxidize water. Thus, a chemical sedimentary environment was required both for the emergence of chemosynthesis and of oxygenic photosynthesis, the two innovations that did most to change the nature of our planet.

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