Ancient rocks yield clues about Earth's earliest crust

(Phys.org) —It looks like just another rock, but what Jesse Reimink holds in his hands is a four-billion-year-old chunk of an ancient protocontinent that holds clues about how the Earth's first continents formed.

Zircon crystals reveal onset of plate tectonics

(Phys.org) -- We're familiar with the theory that the Earth's crust is composed of tectonic plates that move, sometimes dramatically to create earthquakes and tsunamis - but until recently, nobody knew how long this movement ...

Exposed rocks point to water on ancient Mars

A new discovery of hydrothermally altered carbonate-bearing rocks on Mars points toward habitable environments deep in the martian crust, a Planetary Science Institute researcher said.

Water in Earth's mantle key to survival of oldest continents

Earth today is one of the most active planets in the Solar System, and was probably even more so during the early stages of its life. Thanks to the plate tectonics that continue to shape our planet's surface, remnants of ...

Carbonate veins reveal chemistry of ancient seawater

The chemical composition of our oceans is not constant but has varied significantly over geological time. In a study published this week in Science, researchers describe a novel method for reconstructing past ocean chemistry ...

Bias in the rock record?

(PhysOrg.com) -- The fossil record is known to be biased by the unevenness of geographical and stratigraphical sampling, and the lack of exposed rocks containing fossils. In a recent Perspective in Science [2 January 2009] ...

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