Geologists rely on tiny crystals of the mineral zircon to understand the timing of key events in Earth's early days, like the rising of continents and the emergence of oceans. Here's how.
A thin, polished slice of a rock collected from the Jack Hills of Western Australia, viewed through a special microscope equipped with a gypsum plate that shows the rainbow spectrum of quartz that makes up the rock. Whereas the rocks at the Jack Hills are greater than 99% quartz, the remaining 1% of material includes the precious zircons.
The oldest material on Earth which has yet been dated by humanity is a zircon mineral of nearly 4.4 billion years old from a sedimentary rock formation in the Jack Hills of western Australia, seen in this satellite image.Universal History Archive/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images By contrast, zircon is very resilient – which is"one of the main reasons" that this mineral is so useful, he says.
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