Scientists have recognized what might be the oldest rocks on the earth from a rock formation in Canada.
The Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt has lengthy been identified for its historic rocks — plains of streaked grey stone on the jap shore of Hudson Bay in Quebec. But researchers disagree on precisely how previous they’re.
Work from twenty years in the past advised the rocks might be 4.3 billion years previous, putting them in the earliest interval of the earth’s historical past. But different scientists utilizing a unique courting technique contested the discovering, arguing that long-ago contaminants had been skewing the rocks’ age and that they had been truly barely youthful at 3.8 billion years previous.
In the new research, researchers sampled a unique part of rock from the belt and estimated its age utilizing the earlier two courting strategies — measuring how one radioactive component decays into one other over time. The outcome: The rocks had been about 4.16 billion years previous.
The completely different strategies “gave exactly the same age,” said study author Jonathan O’Neil with the University of Ottawa.
The new research was published Thursday in the journal Science.
The earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago from a collapsing cloud of dust and gas soon after the solar system existed. Primordial rocks often get melted and recycled by the earth’s moving tectonic plates, making them extremely rare on the surface today. Scientists have uncovered 4 billion-year-old rocks from another formation in Canada called the Acasta Gneiss Complex, but the Nuvvuagittuq rocks could be even older.
Studying rocks from the earth’s earliest history could give a glimpse into how the planet may have looked — how its roiling magma oceans gave way to tectonic plates — and even how life got started.
“To have a sample of what was going on on the earth way back then is really valuable,” said Mark Reagan with the University of Iowa, who studies volcanic rocks and lava and was not involved with the new study.
The rock formation is on tribal Inukjuak lands and the local Inuit community has temporarily restricted scientists from taking samples from the site due to damage from previous visits.
After some geologists visited the site, large chunks of rock were missing and the community noticed pieces for sale online, said Tommy Palliser, who manages the land with the Pituvik Landholding Corp. The Inuit community wants to work with scientists to set up a provincial park that would protect the land while allowing researchers to study it.
“There’s a lot of interest for these rocks, which we understand,” said Palliser, a member of the community. “We just don’t want any more damage.”
