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Descriptive Information

Title

Evidence from Detrital Zircons for the Existence of Continental Crust and Oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr Ago

Description

Given the nature of the quandary raised above, research on the earliest phases of Earth history continues today. Simon Wilde and co-authors published a key data set in this investigation with their paper “Evidence from Detrital Zircons for the Existence of Continental Crust and Oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr Ago” (Nature, 2001). As the title alludes to, Wilde and co-authors successfully applied the uranium-lead method to date the oldest terrestrial object ever discovered: a single zone of a single shard of the mineral zircon that is 4.4 billion years old. The image on the left shows that zircon with several different spots created by the device used to make the measurement. The incredibly small scale (see the inset scale bar) at which this work is performed requires sophisticated machinery, and the images on the wall above this case features instrumentation in the Department of Geology that is used to conduct current geochronologic research. The oldest rock yet dated is 4 billion years, the oldest mineral is 4.4 billion, and the oldest building material is 4.55 billion. Indeed, the “abyss” of deep time is vast, but importantly not “infinite” nor completely “unrecorded."

Call Number (click link to view in library catalog)

Q. 505 N

See Also

Full Text Available at Nature

Authors

Wilde, Simon A., John W. Valley, William H. Peck, and Colin M. Graham

Date

2001

From the Exhibit

In Search of Lost Time: Radioactivity and the Science of Geochronology

Publisher

Macmillan Journals Ltd.

Location

London

Language

English

Rights

Copyright for this item resides with Macmillan Magazines Ltd. Terms and conditions can be found here: https://www.nature.com/info/terms-and-conditions.

Type

Text

Medium

Article

Bibliographic Citation

Wilde, Simon A., John W. Valley, William H. Peck, and Colin M. Graham. “Evidence from Detrital Zircons for the Existence of Continental Crust and Oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr Ago”. Nature 409 (2001): 175-178.