For more than two centuries, textbooks have taught in various ways that the early Earth was molten for 500,000,000 years, because it formed by meteoritic bombardment.a If so, the heat released by impacts would have melted the entire Earth many times over.b Had Earth ever been molten, its dense, nonreactive chemical elements, such as gold, would have sunk to Earth’s core. Gold is 70% denser than lead, yet it is found at the Earth’s surface.c
Even granite, the basic continental rock, is a mixture of many minerals, each with a different density. If melted granite slowly cooled, the first mineral to solidify would sink to the bottom of the melt, if it were denser than the melt, or it would float to the top of the melt, if it were less dense than the melt. A “layer cake” of minerals, would form instead of granite—which is a granular mixture of minerals. Therefore, the entire Earth was never molten and did not form by meteoritic bombardment.
Radioactive dating of certain zircon minerals also contradicts a molten Earth. Trace elements within those zircons show that the zircons formed at a temperature less than 212°F.d However, based on radioactive dating, those zircons formed billions of years ago when, according to evolutionists, the Earth should have been molten (exceeding 1,800°F)—an obvious contradiction. Either the molten Earth belief or the radioactive dating method must be wrong. Perhaps both are wrong.
Meteorites contain much more of the element xenon than Earth’s surface rocks, relative to other noble (inert) gases, such as helium, neon, and argon. Had Earth formed by meteoritic bombardment, Earth’s surface rocks would have a different composition, and our atmosphere would contain up to ten times more xenon than it has.e If Earth did not evolve by meteoritic bombardment, it may have begun as one large body. [See “Melting the Inner Earth” on pages 344–347.]
A fatal problem with the molten Earth idea will be explained after the properties of magma are explained on page 156. After the mantle solidified, the Earth would be quite different than it is today.