Richard Pallardy is a freelance science writer based in Chicago. He has written for such publications as National Geographic, Science Magazine, New Scientist, and Discover Magazine.
Earth's first continents may have emerged from the planet's primordial oceans much earlier than we thought, just six hundred million years after the planet formed, new research suggests.
The composition of early Earth has long puzzled scientists. When our planet first formed 4.6 billion years ago, it was a roiling sphere of magma. The eon after that, called the Hadean , is poorly understood. While we know that this magma eventually solidified and formed a crust, we do not know precisely what happened after that.
Rainwater contains lighter isotopes, or versions of oxygen, because the heavier isotopes are more resistant to evaporation. Salt water contains more heavy oxygen isotopes, which evaporate less readily. Zircons are extraordinarily resilient. As a result they linger in rocks that are much younger than they are, and young and old zircons end up jumbled together. The rock in which the zircons from the Jack Hills was found was 3 billion years old according to the presentation.
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