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Confirmed: Earth's Oldest Rock In Australia
SpamSlapper writes "Australia's ABC Science reports that ancient zircon crystals discovered in Western Australia have been positively dated to 4.374 billion years, confirming their place as the oldest rock ever found on Earth, according to a new study. The research reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, means Earth began forming a crust far sooner than previously thought, following the giant impact event which created the Earth-Moon system 4.5 billion years ago."
Where this rock is about as old as the social and development views of our current Prime Minister..
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
In the famous words of my old IT teacher: "Perth is that the place where they just invented shoes?".
God I miss those days.
Imma hit you so hard, you gonna get a crust.
And, I'm gonna kick your ass into ORBIT around you, SON!
Now what?
The Giant Impact Hypothesis has never been confirmed. It's presented as fact here.
"there's this book..."
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
The area these are found are extremely high in Iron content. There are a number of high grade iron ore mines nearby. I wonder if there is any link between the high iron content and the formation of these rocks.
The old stuff is always at the bottom of a pile.
They had to kill the rock to confirm its age.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It is almost as old as Larry King.
It's just a poor, defenseless rock you sick bastard!
I wonder what was underneath the rock they found . . .
It's an older rock, and they are saving it so they cab reveal it next year
I'm sure AC/DC will be delighted with their new title of oldest rock on the planet.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I did not know that scientists had examined and dated every rock on (and every rock within) the Earth! The most spectacular part of this task was back when they dismantled Mt Everest, pebble by pebble, examining and dating every little rock, before re-constructing the mountain from all those sorted rocks.
I agree with your general sentiment regarding fake science, however, a little bit of reading comprehension will go a long way.
oldest rock ever found on Earth
It's not like the summary says "The oldest rock on earth!".
Mount Everest is fairly young, we know this because unlike you scientists are aware of how Mount Everest was formed.
You are just a flat earther in denial. Read up on geology.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I figure they cut the crystals open and counted the rings, all 4.374 billion of them.
Whenever you see a science headline that says something retarded, you should assume bad science journalism, rather than bad science.
This is real, serious science. The problem is you've got an imperfect impression of a summary of a news article that was written by a journalism major about a pretty technical academic paper. The actual science is way over your head.
They're not claiming they've found the world's oldest rock. They're validating the dating method used on the oldest known mineral grain. It's very scientificly significant as there are some big implications for our understanding of how the Earth formed if it's as old as they think it is.
It's an older rock, and they are saving it so they cab reveal it next year
Now if you had moved your finger about 3 mm to your right of the letter b the sentence would make more sense. :)
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
While reading the summary is great the correctness of the summary in not an excuse for the headline being incorrect.
I'm not sure if Slashdot or ABC is to blame on this one, both have equally incorrect and very similar headlines. I guess I blame Slashdot more, I expect more of them. (Even if I'm not surprised.) The editor should have made sure that the clearly inaccurate headline was corrected before putting it online.
obviously these scientists haven't carbon dated Mick Jagger yet!
The ABC is probably more at fault, they're supposed to have a dedicated science unit so it gets that kind of thing right.
Of course, one could take the view that it's obvious that not every single rock on Earth has been dated, therefore the only people who really need the word "known" in the headline are pedants or the immensely thick.
Blank until
I have rocks from mars and Pluto in my back yard that are older.
In fact, some are from the Big Bang.
Don't you mean cm to the right?
Egads! Americans using the metric system is like teaching dolphins to ride a bike. It's cute to watch them try!
And this is what happens. You put a bunch of convicts together for over a hundred years and it comes down to rock theft. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/onetonne-boulder-stolen-from-national-rock-garden-20140217-32use.html. The fact that Australia pre-emptively started hyping the value of rocks astounds me, yet here we are.
Don't you mean cm to the right?
Egads! Americans using the metric system is like teaching dolphins to ride a bike. It's cute to watch them try!
geez I give up with both of ya. the big fail is ya gotta go.... and if you place your finger in your ass while reading this ya get the sentence blah blah blah blah blah.
Take that, USAnians: We've got the biggest rock, AND the oldest. All you've got is the biggest hole. Ha ha.
-- newall
...is people!
Soylent News
BUCK FETA!
Don't you mean cm to the right?
Egads! Americans using the metric system is like teaching dolphins to ride a bike. It's cute to watch them try!
3 cm?!?!? How big are the keys on your keyboard?
Dude, do you have problems picking up coins if you drop them?
Aren't ALL rocks 4.5 billion years old?
Or maybe it means that this particular rock happened to be on the surface of the earth 4.37 b years ago. I don't understand... sorry for my ignorance.
Thanks.
Yeah, and Dick Cheney was there to throw it on someone! :D
It is a priority queue. Vegemite comes to the top first, then old rocks after.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
There is no way a rock can be older then 6000 years, it's impossible, of course so is logical and creationism.
Fine, it's the oldest known rock, you pedant. It's still plenty interesting because the oldest known rocks up until know were only about 3.8 billion years old. There is the potential to learn a great deal about the early days of the earth from this rock. Oh, and obligatory xkcd: 1194
Had my hand on a rock yesterday at the Franklin insitue in Philly that said it was 5.5 billion years old that was "found on Earth". (Well the rock didn't speak, thats what the sign read.) I know a meteor isnt created on Earth, but it was found there.
These might be the oldest rocks that have been found on earth, but please stop referring to them as the oldest rocks on earth.
Those remain deep under the surface, in all likelihood.
Assuming "North" is "Up" is just a variation on the flat-earth mentality... :-)
I was thinking the same thing, I think about 1 cm sounds closer.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people