Oldest dated rocks - wikipedia Oldest dated rocks This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( June 2012 ) A sample of gneiss from the site of the Earth 's oldest dated rocks ( the Acasta River area of Canada ). This sample has been dated at 4.03 billion years old. The oldest dated rocks on Earth, as an aggregate of minerals that have not been subsequently broken down by erosion or melted, are more than 4 billion years old, formed during the Hadean Eon of Earth 's geological history. Such rocks are exposed on the Earth 's surface in very few places. Some of the oldest surface rock can be found in the Canadian Shield, Australia, Africa and in a few other old regions around the world. The ages of these felsic rocks are generally between 2.5 and 3.8 billion years. The approximate ages have a margin of error of millions of years. In 1999, the oldest known rock on Earth was dated to 4.031 ± 0.003 billion years, and is part of the Acasta Gneiss of the Slave craton in northwestern Canada. Researchers at McGill University found a rock with a very old model age for extraction from the mantle ( 3.8 to 4.28 billion years ago ) in the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt on the coast of Hudson Bay, in northern Quebec ; the true age of these samples is still under debate, and they may actually be closer to 3.8 billion years old. Older than these rocks are crystals of the mineral zircon, which can survive the disaggregation of their parent rock and be found and dated in younger rock formations. Contents 1 Oldest rocks by category 1.1 Oldest terrestrial material 1.2 Earth 's oldest rock formation 1.3 Oldest rock on Earth 1.4 2008 microprobe research 1.5 Non-terrestrial rocks 2 See also 3 References 4 Bibliography 5 External links Oldest rocks by category Life timeline view discuss edit - 4500 -- -- - 4000 -- -- - 3500 -- -- - 3000 -- -- - 2500 -- -- - 2000 -- -- - 1500 -- -- - 1000 -- -- - 500 -- -- 0 -- water Single - celled life photosynthesis Eukaryotes Multicellular life Arthropods Molluscs Plants Dinosaurs Mammals Flowers Birds Primates ← Earliest Earth ( − 4540 ) ← Earliest water ← Earliest life ← LHB meteorites ← Earliest oxygen ← Atmospheric oxygen ← Oxygen crisis ← Earliest sexual reproduction ← Earliest plants ← Ediacara biota ← Cambrian explosion ← Tetrapoda ← Earliest apes h n r o z o i r o r o z o i r h n d n Pongola Huronian Cryogenian Andean Karoo Quaternary ice ages Axis scale : million years Also see : Human timeline and Nature timeline Oldest terrestrial material The oldest material of terrestrial origin that has been dated is a zircon mineral of 4.404 ± 0.008 Ga enclosed in a metamorphosed sandstone conglomerate in the Jack Hills of the Narryer Gneiss Terrane of Western Australia. The 4.404 ± 0.008 Ga zircon is a slight outlier, with the oldest consistently - dated zircon falling closer to 4.35 Ga. This zircon is part of a population of zircons within the metamorphosed conglomerate, which is believed to have been deposited about 3.060 Ga, which is the age of the youngest detrital zircon in the rock. Recent developments in atom - probe tomography have led to a further constraint on the age of the oldest continental zircon, with the most recent age quoted as 4.374 Ga ± 0.006. Earth 's oldest rock formation Fragment of Acasta Gneiss The oldest rock formation is, depending on the latest research, either part of the Isua Greenstone Belt, Narryer Gneiss Terrane, Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt, or the Acasta Gneiss ( on the Slave craton ). The difficulty in assigning the title to one particular block of gneiss is that the gneisses are all extremely deformed, and the oldest rock may be represented by only one streak of minerals in a mylonite, representing a layer of sediment or an old dike. This may be difficult to find or map ; hence, the oldest dates yet resolved are as much generated by luck in sampling as by understanding the rocks themselves. It is thus premature to claim that any of these rocks, or indeed that of other formations of Hadean gneisses, is the oldest formations or rocks on Earth ; doubtless, new analyses will continue to change our conceptions of the structure and nature of these ancient continental fragments. Nevertheless, the oldest cratons on Earth include the Kaapvaal craton, the Western Gneiss Terrane of the Yilgarn craton ( ~ 2.9 -- > 3.2 Ga ), the Pilbara Craton ( ~ 3.4 Ga ), and portions of the Canadian Shield ( ~ 2.4 -- > 3.6 Ga ). Parts of the poorly studied Dharwar craton in India are greater than 3.0 Ga. The oldest dated rocks of the Baltic Shield are 3.5 Ga old. Oldest rock on Earth The Acasta Gneiss in the Canadian Shield in the Northwest Territories, Canada is composed of the Archaean igneous and gneissic cores of ancient mountain chains that have been exposed in a glacial peneplain. Analyses of zircons from a felsic orthogneiss with presumed granitic protolith returned an age of 4.031 ± 0.003 Ga. On September 25, 2008, researchers from McGill University, Carnegie Institution for Science and UQAM announced that a rock formation, the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt, exposed on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec had a Sm - Nd model age for extraction from the mantle of 4.28 billion years. However, it is argued that the actual age of formation of this rock, as opposed to the extraction of its magma from the mantle, is likely closer to 3.8 billion years, according to Simon Wilde of the Institute for Geoscience Research in Australia. 2008 microprobe research The zircons from the Western Australian Jack Hills returned an age of 4.404 billion years, interpreted to be the age of crystallization. These zircons also show another interesting feature ; their oxygen isotopic composition has been interpreted to indicate that more than 4.4 billion years ago there was already water on the surface of the Earth. The importance and accuracy of these interpretations is currently the subject of scientific debate. It may be that the oxygen isotopes and other compositional features ( the rare - earth elements ) record more recent hydrothermal alteration of the zircons rather than the composition of the magma at the time of their original crystallization. In a paper published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, a team of scientists suggest that rocky continents and liquid water existed at least 4.3 billion years ago and were subjected to heavy weathering by an acrid climate. Using an ion microprobe to analyze isotope ratios of the element lithium in zircons from the Jack Hills in Western Australia, and comparing these chemical fingerprints to lithium compositions in zircons from continental crust and primitive rocks similar to the Earth 's mantle, they found evidence that the young planet already had the beginnings of continents, relatively cool temperatures and liquid water by the time the Australian zircons formed. Non-terrestrial rocks One of the oldest Martian meteorites found on Earth, ALH84001, discovered in the Allan Hills of Antarctica, has been reported to have crystallized from molten rock 4.091 billion years ago. The Genesis Rock, ( Lunar sample 15415 ) obtained from the Moon by astronauts during Apollo 15 mission, has been dated at 4.08 billion years. During Apollo 16, older rocks, including Lunar sample 67215, dated at 4.46 billion years, were brought back. Lunar sample 67215 is the oldest known rock on Earth, even though it originated on the Moon. See also Age of the Earth Earliest known life forms History of the Earth Nature timeline References ^ Jump up to : Bowring, Samuel A. ; Williams, Ian S. ( 1999 ). `` Priscoan ( 4.00 -- 4.03 Ga ) orthogneisses from northwestern Canada ''. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology. 134 : 3. Bibcode : 1999CoMP... 134... 3B. doi : 10.1007 / s004100050465. Jump up ^ Thompson, Andrea ( 2008 ). `` Oldest rocks on Earth found in northern Canada ''. Live Science. http://www.livescience.com/environment/080925-oldest-rocks.html ^ Jump up to : Discovery of world 's oldest rocks challenged Jump up ^ Simon A. Wilde, et al. : Evidence from detrital zircons for the existence of continental crust and oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr ago, Nature Geoscience, 2001 Jump up ^ Wilde, S.A., J.W. Valley, W.H. Peck and C.M. Graham ( 2001 ) Evidence from detrital zircons for the existence of continental crust and oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr ago. Nature, v. 409, pp. 175 -- 78. http://www.geology.wisc.edu/%7Evalley/zircons/Wilde2001Nature.pdf Jump up ^ John W. Valley, et al. : Hadean age for a post-magma - ocean zircon confirmed by atom - probe tomography, Nature Geoscience, 2014 http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2075.html Jump up ^ Mutanen & Huhma ( 2003 ) : The 3.5 Ga Siurua trondhjemite gneiss in the Archaean Pudasjärvi Granulite Belt, northern Finland Bulletin of the Geological Society of Finland, Vol. 75 ( 1 -- 2 ) pp. 51 -- 68 Jump up ^ O'Neil, J ; Carlson, Rw ; Francis, D ; Stevenson, Rk ( Sep 2008 ). `` Neodymium - 142 evidence for Hadean mafic crust ''. Science. 321 ( 5897 ) : 1828 -- 31. Bibcode : 2008Sci... 321.1828 O. doi : 10.1126 / science. 1161925. PMID 18818357. Jump up ^ McGill University press release Jump up ^ Oldest rocks on Earth found Jump up ^ http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/321/5897/1828.pdf Jump up ^ Newswise : Ancient Mineral Shows Early Earth Climate Tough on Continents. Retrieved on June 15, 2008. Jump up ^ Lapen, T.J. ; et al. ( 2010 ). `` A Younger Age for ALH84001 and Its Geochemical Link to Shergottite Sources in Mars ''. Science. 328 ( 5976 ) : 347 -- 351. Bibcode : 2010Sci... 328... 347L. doi : 10.1126 / science. 1185395. PMID 20395507. Jump up ^ Meyer, C. ( 2011 ). `` Lunar Sample Compendium - 15415 Ferroan Anorthosite '' ( PDF ). NASA. Retrieved July 24, 2017. Jump up ^ Norman, M.D., Borg, L.E., Nyquist, L.E., and Bogard, D.D. ( 2003 ) Chronology, geochemistry, and petrology of a ferroan noritic anorthosite clast from Descartes breccia 67215 : Clues to the age, origin, structure, and impact history of the lunar crust, Meteoritics and Planetary Science, vol 38, pp. 645 -- 61 Summary Bibliography Zircons are Forever `` Western Australia 's Jack Hills ''. NASA Earth Observatory newsroom. Retrieved 2006 - 04 - 28. Bowring, S.A., and Williams, I.S., 1999. Priscoan ( 4.00 -- 4.03 Ga ) orthogneisses from northwestern Canada. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, v. 134, 3 -- 16. Stern, R.A., Bleeker, W., 1998. Age of the world 's oldest rocks refined using Canada 's SHRIMP. the Acasta gneiss complex, Northwest Territories, Canada. Geoscience Canada, v. 25, pp. 27 -- 31 Yu A., Lee C-D and Halliday, A.N.. Lutetium - Hafnium and Uranium - Lead Systematics of Early - Middle Archean Single Zircon Grains, Ninth Annual Goldschmidt Conference. 2 External links Very old Australian zircons with a story to tell On the Acasta Gneiss Abstract and full text of the results from O'Neil's research, published by Science Earth sciences portal Geology portal Science portal Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oldest_dated_rocks&oldid=806081970 '' Categories : Petrology Radiometric dating Superlatives Hidden categories : Articles needing additional references from June 2012 All articles needing additional references All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from November 2007 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Simple English Українська Edit links This page was last edited on 19 October 2017, at 15 : 35. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. 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Question: what mineral in 4 ga sandstones was dated to determine the age of the earth
Answer: zircon