Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago, during the geological eon known as the Hadean. The name "Hadean" comes from the ...

The oldest terrestrial materials ever dated by scientists are extremely rare zircon minerals that were discovered in western ...

Geologists have long debated whether a stony formation in Canada contains the world’s oldest rocks – new measurements make a ...

Scientists using two different age-determining techniques have shown that a tiny zircon crystal found on a sheep ranch in western Australia is the oldest known piece of our planet, dating to 4.4 ...

The mineral zircon forms when the elements zirconium, silicon, and oxygen crystallize in magma or metamorphic rock. Over time, repeated heating and cooling adds outer layers to the crystal, like ...

During the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 - the last time people walked on the moon - U.S. astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan collected about 243 pounds (110.4 kg) of soil and rock samples ...

Curiously, the scientists also found zircon in the meteorite that dates back 1.548 billion to 299 million years, which they believe formed as part of Mars' Elysium and Tharsis volcanic regions.

The zircon was extracted in 2001 from a rock outcrop in Australia’s Jack Hills region. For a rock of such importance, it is rather small. It measures only about 200 by 400 microns, about twice the ...

Zircorn: the finding supports the notion of a "cool early Earth" where temperatures were low enough to sustain oceans Credit: Photo: Reuters To put it mildly, this is one gem of a gem. Scientists ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - To put it mildly, this is one gem of a gem. Scientists using two different age-determining techniques have shown that a tiny zircon crystal found on a sheep ranch in western ...