On The Efficacy Of Ocean Formation With A Primordial Hydrogen Atmosphere

It has been suggested that Earth’s present water budget formed from oxidation reactions between its initial hydrogen-rich primordial atmosphere and its magma ocean.

Here we examine this hypothesis by building a comprehensive atmosphere-magma ocean model. We find that water formation is unlikely for two reasons. First, any water formed from oxidation reactions in the magma ocean would quickly outgass because of the water-poor atmosphere above.

Second, the top boundary layer of the magma ocean becomes stable against convection because the oxidation reactions produce metallic iron, which sinks to the core of a growing Earth. This iron loss makes the top boundary layer significantly more buoyant than the rest of the magma, thus becoming stable against mixing.

Our results suggest that hydrogen dissolution is unlikely to play a major role in the formation of Earth’s oceans.

Darius Modirrousta-Galian, Jun Korenaga

Comments: Accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Planets
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph); Geophysics (physics.geo-ph)
Cite as: arXiv:2506.10417 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2506.10417v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.10417
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Submission history
From: Darius Modirrousta-Galian
[v1] Thu, 12 Jun 2025 07:14:27 UTC (15,237 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.10417

Astrobiology, astrogeology,