Earth's oldest crystals reveal age of plate tectonics
By Daisy Dobrijevic about 15 hours ago
The findings were buried beneath billions of years of Earth history.
The interiors of the zircons are visualized using an specialized electron microscope. (Image credit: Michael Ackerson/Smithsonian)
Earth's constantly moving tectonic plates have created the unique habitable planet we recognize today.
A new study, led by geologist Michael Ackerson from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington has predicted that our planet's tectonic plates — large slabs of Earth’s crust lying over a liquid mantle — began moving roughly 3.6 billion years ago, when Earth was just under one billion years old.
Peering this far back into the planet's ancient past requires studying material that can stand the test of time, in this case billions of years. For this, the scientists turned to zircons — the oldest and one of the toughest minerals on Earth.
These tiny crystal time capsules are virtually indestructible and can be more than four billion years old. They're one of our only windows into the primitive stages of our planet's formation.
More:
https://www.space.com/earth-plate-tectonic-age-from-zircons
= new reply since forum marked as read
