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Earth has exist for4.54 billion twelvemonth , and during that time , our planet has undergo a number of violent transitions . This have it difficult for researchers to feel out what hap during Earth ’s early history , as most of the evidence was destroy eons ago .
However , scientist have observe ancient rock scattered throughout the earth . These remnant provide a glance into Earth ’s infancy and help oneself scientists trace our planet ’s development . Here are some of the oldest rocks ever see and the insights they offer about our rest home planet .
A microscope image of a 4.4 billion-year-old zircon
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The Jack Hills, 4.4 billion years old
The Jack Hills , in Western Australia , contain tiny traces of stone that are old than the hills themselves . The 50 - land mile - tenacious ( 80 kilometers ) rooftree turn back crystallized minerals call zircons date to4.4 billion years ago , making them the oldest Earth cloth ever found . Zircon crystal are durable ; they can live even when the rocks around them are put down , eroded or recycled back into Earth ’s middle layer . Zircons contain radioactive uranium , which decays very slow , thereby helping geologists accurately go out the crystals . Some zircons in the Jack Hills , which date to around 4 billion years ago , also suggest thatearly Earth had refreshed waterjust 600 million years after it imprint .
Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt, 3.8 billion to 4.3 billion years old
The Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt in northerly Quebec may contain the humans ’s former preserved John Rock . Agreenstone beltis a recollective area that mainly incorporate metamorphosed sedimentary and volcanic sway and is theremains of an ancient ocean basin . The precise age of Nuvvuagittuq ’s rocks is controversial : Some studiesused zircons to happen a minimum eld of 3.8 billion yr old , but alater studythat look at role of Earth ’s primordial crust suggested the rocks ' maximum age was 4.3 billion year sure-enough , meaning it dates to the Hadean ( 4.6 billion to 4 billion years ago ) . Subsequent written report continue to debate the bash ’s exact eld . Some researchers have also suggestedthe swath contains grounds of Earth ’s earliest life — traces of bacteria see to between 4.3 billion and 3.7 billion eld ago .
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Acasta Gneiss, 4 billion years old
Rocks located in the Acasta Gneiss Complex in northern Canada have been dated to 4 billion years ago , making them the oldest definitively dated tilt , according to the educational platformOpen Geology . Gneiss is a type of metamorphous rock that has been subjected tohigh temperatures and pressuresdeep in Earth ’s impudence . The rock was isotopically dated , mean scientists measured the ratio ofuranium atoms that have transformed into atomic number 82 .
Isua Greenstone Belt, 3.8 billion years old
The Isua Greenstone Belt in westerly Greenland incorporate some of the previous rock candy on Earth . However , Isua is also important because some researchers have debate it holds the earliest grounds of life on Earth , dating to 3.7 billion yr ago . In 2017 , researcher discovered what looked like midget moving ridge in a crown of thorns section of the surface of a rock music outcropping . The researcher said the ripples are thefossilized clay of cone - shaped stromatolites — superimposed mounds of sediment and carbonate that build up around colony of microbes that turn on the floor of shallow seas or lake . However , this finding is controversial . In improver , Isua hold " chemical substance fingerprint " of an ancient magma ocean that bubbled over much of Earth ’s surface4.5 billion years ago , shortly after the satellite ’s birth .
Barberton Greenstone Belt, 3.5 billion to 4.1 billion years old
Ancient rock in southern Africa ’s Barberton Greenstone Belt contain evidence for some of theearliest known earthquakes , which occurred around 3.3 billion years ago . The sway provide grounds of earlyplate tectonics . In 2021 , researchers published a partialmapof the belt , which unveil " a mammoth clutter of block " detached from where they formed , Simon Lamb , a geologist at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand who was regard in a laterstudyon Barberton , told Live Science at the meter . The belt ammunition also contains ancient zircon dating to between4.1 billion and 3.3 billion years ago .
Napier Complex, 3.6 billion to 4 billion years old
The Napier Complex in eastern Antarctica holds zircons dating to around 3.6 billion age ago and just one zircon go steady to 4 billion years ago . " Its meaning can not be overestimated , since it may indirectly evidence the being of an Early Archean crustal block with a minimum age of 4 Ga [ 4 billion years ] , " researchers write in a 2011 study of the zircons published in the journalDoklady Earth Sciences . Crustal cube , also make love as fault blocks , are vast chunks of tilt formed by tectonic and other forces .
Anshan area, 3.8 billion years old
The Anshan area in northeasternChinaholds the country ’s old rocks and some of the most ancient careen in the humanity . Anshan is part of the580,000 - square - mile(1.5 million square kilometers ) North China Craton , but the most ancient rockscover less than 8 hearty miles(20 square km ) .
Big Bertha, 4 billion years old
In 2019 , scientist see that one of Earth ’s honest-to-goodness rock’n’roll has expend billions of age out from our planet and only recently repay home . Apollo 14 astronaut collected the roughly 4 billion - year - old rock , nicknamed Big Bertha , from the moon ’s surface in 1971 . The Harlan F. Stone carry minerals similar to granite and crystal , which are extremely rarefied on the lunar month , study carbon monoxide - authorAlexander Nemchin , a prof in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University in Australia , say in astatement . The 2019researchfound that role of the rock and roll form in conditions that are rarified on the moon but distinctive on Earth . This finding suggests it constitute on Earth but was knocked away from our planet by a gargantuan asteroid impact , before resolve on our celestial neighbor , according toNASA .
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A microscope image of a 4.4 billion-year-old zircon
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Acasta rock
Isua belt in Greenland
Barberton mountains in southern Africa
Tundra in Antarctica.
Qianshan National Park near Anshan
The rock nicknamed Big bertha
