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Researchers say they might have discovered the oldest rocks on Earth. The rocks in question are a belt of swirly, stripe-covered rocks found in the northeastern reaches of Canada. These rocks appear to contain some of the oldest minerals that we’ve ever catalogued. This outcropping of rocks is known as the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt, and new dating analysis of the belt say that it could be as old as 4.16 billion years.
That’s nearly as old as the estimated age of the Earth itself. And these findings suggest that the belt could be one of the best locations for digging deeper into understanding our planet’s earliest years. But researchers haven’t come to this conclusion easily. The Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt has been under scrutiny for over 15 years, geoscientists told Science Alert.
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By confirming the age of these rocks, and that they might just be the oldest rocks on Earth, we’re finally opening the door to new research possibilities. While there are likely other groups of rocks like this to be found elsewhere, the Earth’s surface and crust are constantly in motion as tectonic forces meet with the weathering influences above. This creates a unique area for rocks and dirt to move and break down.
As such, finding other places like the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt that are full of old and unique minerals is difficult. Places like this where the rocks have managed to survive the breakdown of time are extremely valuable for giving us insight into the past, which could hopefully one day help us determine where life on Earth originated from.
The oldest rocks on Earth are especially helpful for scientists, as they contain Hadean minerals, which are minerals from Earth’s first geological eon. This particular eon spans from the formation of Earth to just over 4 billion years ago. But dating the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt has been difficult because past attempts to date it returned inconsistent results, ranging from 2.7 billion years to 4.3 billion years.
For this new study, which is published in Science, the researchers used two dating measurements on a type of rock known as metagabbro. Both tests returned the same results, suggesting that the researchers were on the right track. While they want to dive deeper into the analysis itself, the researchers say the minimum age of the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt is 4.16 billion years.
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