New Thermometer Reveals Wet Conditions On Earliest

[Human]

I really wonder on how they come up with this stuff. It "WOWs'" Me.

 

 

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http://i-newswire.com/pr19066.html

 

Zircons are tiny crystals embedded in rock that are the oldest known materials on Earth.

 

 

 

-Newswire, 2005-05-07 - "Our data support recent theories that Earth began a pattern of crust formation, erosion, and sediment recycling as early in its evolution as 4.35 billion years ago, which contrasts with the hot, violent environment envisioned for our young planet by most researchers and opens up the possibility that life got a very early foothold," said E. Bruce Watson, Institute Professor of Science and professor of geochemistry at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

 

According to Watson, the research provides important information and a new technique for making additional discoveries about the first eon of Earth's history, the Hadean eon, a time period for which still little is known.

 

The research findings are reported in the May 6 issue of the journal Science in a paper titled "Zircon Thermometer Reveals Minimum Melting Conditions on Earliest Earth."

 

Watson collaborated with co-author T. Mark Harrison, director of the Research School of Earth Sciences at Australian National University and professor of geochemistry at UCLA, on the research. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation ( NSF ), the Australian Research Council, and the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

 

Watson and Harrison developed a new thermometer that involves the measurement of the titanium content of zircon crystals to determine their crystallization temperature. Zircons are tiny crystals embedded in rock that are the oldest known materials on Earth. Zircons pre-date by 400 million years the oldest known rocks on Earth. These ancient crystals provide researchers with a window into the earliest history of the Earth and have been used to date the assembly and movement of continents and oceans.

 

"Zircons allow us to go further back in geologic time because they survive processes that rocks do not," said Watson. "Although they measure only a fraction of a millimeter in size, zircons hold a wealth of information about the very earliest history of Earth."