Its original rock is sedimented in the environment of active epicontinent-seaboard with basic volcanism, and become khondalite series through the Archean regional high-amphibolite facies metamorphism.
Some of these actually triggered volcanism, which created these huge pools of molten rock on the surface, which then solidified to form a rock called basalt, which are the dark splodges that we can see on the moon today.
Able to drill at over 8,000 meters (26,000 feet) beneath the surface of the sea, researchers collected previously unreached sediments to try and reconstruct the history of volcanism in the area.
While active volcanism introduces some amounts of minerals to the North Island soils, these eruptions don't really happen that often and they're usually pretty minor events.
And if it wasn't for the fact that we had kind of an active plate tectonics, which had a lot of volcanism on it, we could have been locked in that forever.
Natural processes, such as volcanism, chemical weathering of rocks, and the burial of organic matter, can cause huge changes in carbon dioxide when they continue for millions of years.
So what plate tectonics does is, because it fosters more volcanism, is that you're gonna get carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere, which warms the planet up and gets you out of the snowball Earth phase.
The evidence for recent volcanism " changes our understanding in the sense that now we will probably start focusing on catching Venus in the act of erupting" .