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The origin of the oceans is intimately linked to the origin of Planet Earth and the Solar System. Radiometric dating of meteorites establishes the 4.5 billion year age of the Solar System. However, the oldest rocks ever found that originated on Planet Earth were originally ocean sediments and are roughly 3.7 million years old. Physical and chemical laws support the concept that the planets accreted cold from planetesimals from the dust cloud spinning around the early Sun. Studies of inert gas abundances in the solar system reveal that Planet Earth lost an entire atmosphere early in its history, but its water was locked in hydrate minerals protected within the mantle. Radioactivity provides the mechanism for Planet Earth to have begun cold and to have heated up enough to eventually melt iron and “differentiate” forming the core, mantle, crust and oceans. KUTh was the primary heat source for the differentiation, and fortuitously, Planet Earth just happened to be the proper size for differentiation. About a billion years into Earth’s history, the “KILN” was lit and water dehydrated in the mantle as the oceans were formed and the iron and all other heavy minerals settled downward into the core.
Mars probably did not differentiate because it was too small and had too little KUTh. By the way, the Moon underwent a minor differentiation event and a small core formed. Mercury also has a small core. Venus, approximately the same size as the Earth, probably experienced differentiation as well, and the greenhouse effect explains why there is no water but abundant carbon dioxide on its surface. The other planets in our solar system are gaseous, and Jupiter was almost big enough to light the “Nuclear Furnace” and become another Sun." Some of Jupiter’s moons are terrestrial. Io displays volcanic activity and Europa has a surfaces of ice and a deep ocean. Earth is the only planet in the solar system with the restricted temperature range necessary to have a liquid ocean at the surface and support 1ife as we know it.