Author(s): Lingxi Liu, University of California Los Angeles (First Author, Presenting Author) Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni, University of California Los Angeles
We model how water is recycled through Earth’s interior to determine how much land was exposed and when in Earth’s ancient past. We build a simple time evolution model by solving differential equations describing heat loss and water cycling. From this simple model we compute surface water volume, mantle temperature, plate velocity, and other relevant quantities. We require that our model evolution match the present-day ocean volume and geological evidence of surface land (above sea-level). We find that the Earth was never a true water world, as there was always some land exposed.
