A very interesting simulation and unexpected results. The source or statement cited in the article says this, "He commented: "Plate tectonics act as a kind of thermostat for the Earth creating the conditions which allow life to evolve. The Earth has a lot of iron in its core, and we had assumed that this would be necessary for tectonic development. However we found that even planets with little iron may develop plate tectonics if the timing is right. This was completely unexpected".,
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/gc-lit061920.php
Commonly in exoplanet studies, rocky planets need to form around host stars with certain metal abundances but this new simulation calls that thinking into question by pushing those type of exoplanets back, earlier in MW history according to stellar evolution dating method where less metals should exist. I used this exoplanet site,
http://exoplanet.eu/, listing 4281 confirmed that shows host star ages too. I ran MS SQL query for host stars between 6E+9 to 13.2E+9 years old, found 190 exoplanets listed. It would be interesting to see if any of the 190 exoplanets support the simulation model. Their distances range 6 to 5448 LY, average metallicity (Fe/H), 1.07 solar. Average exoplanet mass 3.76 Mjup, average host star mass 0.9235 solar.
This report does call attention to a constraint for life on exoplanets, plate tectonics and a magnetic field.
"Researchers have found that rocky exoplanets which formed early in the life of the galaxy seem to have had a greater chance of developing a magnetic field and plate tectonics than planets which formed later. As both these conditions are considered favourable to the development of life, this means that if life exists in the Galaxy, it may have developed earlier than later, and that planets formed more recently may have less chance of developing life."
Defining constraints on models used in science is important--Rod