New Technique Unlocks Ancient History of Earth from Grains of Sand
Published:07 Mar.2022 Source:Curtin University
Lead researcher Dr Milo Barham, from the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group within Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the team devised a metric, which determines the ‘age distribution fingerprint’ of minerals known as zircon within sand, shedding new light on the evolution of the Earth’s surface over the last few billion years. “While much of the original geological record is lost to erosion, durable minerals like zircon form sediments that effectively gather information from these lost worlds to paint a vivid picture of the planet’s history, including changing environments, the development of a habitable biosphere, the evolution of continents, and the accumulation of mineral resources at ancient plate boundaries,” Dr Barham said.
“This new approach allows a greater understanding of the nature of ancient geology in order to reconstruct the arrangement and movement of tectonic plates on Earth through time.” “The world’s beaches faithfully record a detailed history of our planet’s geological past, with billions of years of Earth’s history imprinted in the geology of each grain of sand and our technique helps unlock this information.”