4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest piece of Earth

10 years ago | Posted in: Technology | 593 Views

Scientists say they have dated an ancient crystal called a zircon to about 4.4 billion years, making it the earliest confirmed piece of the planet’s crust. The findings — the first to describe the zircon — were published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday.

“This is the oldest and the best dated of all the crystals that have been reported,” said John Valley, lead study author and professor in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This crystal is a translucent red, Valley said, but glows blue when bombarded with electrons. At 400 micrometers long, its biggest dimension is just a tad larger than a house dust mite, or about four human hairs.see more

Source: edition.cnn.com

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