Plate tectonics is a fundamental factor in the sustained habitability of Earth, but its time of onset is unknown, with ages ranging from the Hadaean to Proterozoic eons^1-3. Plate motion is a key diagnostic to distinguish between plate and stagnant-lid tectonics, but palaeomagnetic tests have been thwarted because the planet's oldest extant rocks have been metamorphosed and/or deformed⁴. Herein, we report palaeointensity data from Hadaean-age to Mesoarchaean-age single detrital zircons bearing primary magnetite inclusions from the Barberton Greenstone Belt of South Africa⁵. These reveal a pattern of palaeointensities from the Eoarchaean (about 3.9 billion years ago (Ga)) to Mesoarchaean (about 3.3 Ga) eras that is nearly identical to that defined by primary magnetizations from the Jack Hills (JH; Western Australia)^6,7, further demonstrating the recording fidelity of select detrital zircons. Moreover, palaeofield values are nearly constant between about 3.9 Ga and about 3.4 Ga. This indicates unvarying latitudes, an observation distinct from plate tectonics of the past 600 million years (Myr) but predicted by stagnant-lid convection. If life originated by the Eoarchaean⁸, and persisted to the occurrence of stromatolites half a billion years later⁹, it did so when Earth was in a stagnant-lid regime, without plate-tectonics-driven geochemical cycling.

Determining the age of the geomagnetic field is of paramount importance for understanding the evolution of the planet because the field shields the atmosphere from erosion by the solar wind. The absence or presence of the geomagnetic field also provides a unique gauge of early core conditions. Evidence for a geomagnetic field 4.2 billion-year (Gy) old, just a few hundred million years after the lunar-forming giant impact, has come from paleomagnetic analyses of zircons of the Jack Hills (Western Australia). Herein, we provide new paleomagnetic and electron microscope analyses that attest to the presence of a primary magnetic remanence carried by magnetite in these zircons and new geochemical data indicating that select Hadean zircons have escaped magnetic resetting since their formation. New paleointensity and Pb-Pb radiometric age data from additional zircons meeting robust selection criteria provide further evidence for the fidelity of the magnetic record and suggest a period of high geomagnetic field strength at 4.1 to 4.0 billion years ago (Ga) that may represent efficient convection related to chemical precipitation in Earth's Hadean liquid iron core.