The Earth's initial rock cycle began with primordial basaltic crust
Geological evidence and experimental models widely support the consensus that Earth's earliest crust was predominantly basaltic, serving as the protocrust from which later continental formations evolved.
The retrieved papers consistently describe early Earth and Hadean crustal models as being composed of basaltic material or mafic protocrusts that later underwent partial melting to form tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite (TTG) suites and continental crust. None of the papers refute this foundational geological consensus.
A. Hastie, S. Law, G. Bromiley, J. Fitton, S. Harley, D. Muir. Deep formation of Earth’s earliest continental crust consistent with subduction. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01249-5
Paper notes that Earth's outer layer around four billion years ago is thought to have been composed mostly of a basaltic crust.
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S. Tian, Xin Ding, Yuhan Qi, Fei Wu, Yue Cai, R. Gaschnig, Zicong Xiao, Weixin Lv, R. Rudnick, F. Huang. Dominance of felsic continental crust on Earth after 3 billion years ago is recorded by vanadium isotopes. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2220563120
Paper states that Earth's earliest crust may have been basaltic by analogy with ancient crusts of other terrestrial planets.
Hirakawa Y, Kim HJ, Furukawa Y, Abraham C, Peng TW, Biondi E, Benner SA. Interstep compatibility of a model for the prebiotic synthesis of RNA consistent with Hadean natural history.. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2516418122
Paper describes geological environments constrained by basalt as part of Hadean natural history.
S. Law, A. Hastie. Subduction origin of the Nb anomaly in Earth’s oldest continents. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1093/petrology/egaf060
Paper discusses how Earth's oldest continental crust formed through partial melting of thick Hadean basaltic crust.
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