This attractively puritanical speck of zircon crystal is dated to around 4.4 billion years old , making it the early confirmed piece of music of the satellite ’s crust and providing some clues about how life on Earth came to be .
The ancient crystal was get in the stick of Western Australia at a remote rock rock outcrop called Jack Hills . Ina 2014 study , scientists dated the discovery to 4.39 billion years old , give or take a few million years , making it the oldest geologic textile ever plant on Earth .
Even before this research , zircons were eff to be some of the honest-to-goodness materials on Earth , form as a mineral within sure magmas as they cool . They ’re sturdy as nails and capable of surviving for 1000000000000 of years , even when open to vivid heat or press . This makes them perfect time capsules from Earth ’s early history .
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Timescale shows just how early this zircon formed in the history of Earth. Image credit: Andree Valley
Bear in mind , this exceptional zircon crystal is absolutely tiny , barely seeable to the naked eye . Despite its microscopic size , however , it hold some Brobdingnagian implication .
Its date of origin was a mere 160 million years after the organisation of our solar organization . This means it was created just tens of millions of eld after an early proto - Earth collided with a jumbo Mars - size object , creating our Moonin the cognitive process and turning our planet into a glowing red musket ball of molten rock and roll .
However , this speck of zircon propose that this fiery hellhole did n’t last for too long . If zircon was around 4.4 billion years ago , then Earth must have cool and congealed by then , form a gall . Working within this meter frame , the prehistoric zircon serve as evidence that Earth developed liquid water environs around 4.3 billion age ago andpossibly lifeshortly after .
“ This confirms our perspective of how the Earth cool off and became inhabitable . This may also help us realise how other habitable planet would mold , " Professor John Valley , a geochemist at the University of Wisconsin - Madison , saidin 2014 .
" The Earth was set up from a lot of heterogeneous stuff from the solar scheme , ” add Valley . “ Our samples form after the magma sea cool and prove that these events were very early . "
