Using Kīlauea to Quantitatively Prove CCC Produced Earth's Oceans — And Likely Most Water in the Solar System

Companion paper to: Jenkins, S. (2026) "The Cosmic Combustion Cycle: Metal Oxide Catalytic Chemistry as a Universal Process from Stellar Nurseries to Habitable Worlds." Authorea Preprints. DOI: 10.22541/au.177101834.42641531/v1 Kīlauea volcano provides a modern, measurable analog for the catalytic combustion chemistry (CCC) that produced Earth's hydrosphere (Jenkins 2026). By anchoring calculations to Kīlauea's observed water output — 8,000 tonnes/day from a 25 km2 lava field, 3,200 km from the nearest subduction zone — and scaling to a planet-wide magma ocean with unlimited methane fuel, we show that CCC produces Earth's ocean in 2,300–92,000 years depending on assumptions. This is 50–2,000× faster than the magma ocean's 2–10 Myr lifespan, meaning the system is overproductive — raising the real question: why isn't Earth a water world? We resolve this by identifying four sinks: mantle storage (1–12 ocean masses capacity), hydrogen escape (at least 1 ocean mass lost), subduction recycling (4:1 net sink ratio), and the finite carbon budget as the ultimate limiter. We further show that volcanism was 3–10× more intense in the first 2 billion years (Hadean–Archean), with radiogenic heat at ~95 TW vs. 20 TW today, komatiite lavas erupting at 1,600°C vs. modern basalts at 1,200°C, and mantle potential temperatures 150–250°C hotter than present. This enhanced early volcanism amplifies every CCC calculation. The same chemistry scales to any rocky body with accreted carbon and metal oxide surfaces, implyin