Posted on 08/22/2007 6:48:58 PM PDT by blam
Diamonds tell story of Earth's beginning
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 22/08/2007
Diamonds really are forever, according to a study that has found tiny examples of the gems that date from near the birth of the Earth.
Tiny diamonds discovered inside crystals of zircon
Over four billion years old, the diamonds are the oldest identified fragments of the Earth’s crust and were discovered in the Jack Hills region of Western Australia, suggesting they were created only 300 million years after the planet itself was born from the dust and debris encircling our Sun some 4.5 billion years ago.
The birth of the bling - which was found trapped inside crystals of zircon - could provide unique insights into the early evolution of the planet and end a debate over whether the infant Earth was a blackened landscape of congealed lava or cool enough for oceans to form.
Recent studies of these ancient zircon crystals have suggested that the Earth might have cooled much more quickly than previously thought, with the continental crust and oceans forming as early as 4.4 billion years ago.
But today Martina Menneken of the Institute of Mineralogy, University of Münster. Germany, and colleagues report that some of them contained small diamonds which are almost one billion years older than any diamonds previously discovered, and are present in material that crystallized within 300 million years of the formation of the Earth itself.
Dr Alexander Nemchin, from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia, and co-author of the study, published in Nature, said: “Jack Hills is the only place on Earth that can give us this kind of information about the formation of the Earth. We’re dealing with the oldest material on the planet.
“These zircons were discovered 20 years ago and we’ve been extracting information ever since. These latest findings indicate that the planet was already cooling and forming a crust.”
This period is the geological equivalent of the Dark Ages, commented Ian Williams of the Australian National University, Canberra.
“The formal name given to the period, the Hadean, matches the long-held view that during this time Earth’s entire surface, or at least large tracts of it, was a hellish, seething mass of molten lava.”
While the oxygen compositions of the zircons had suggested that it took less than 200 million years for Earth’s surface to cool sufficiently from around 6000 deg C for water to condense, “the new find raises questions about whether this interpretation is correct,” said Dr Williams.
The zircon crystals come from the dawn of geological time. Later meteorite bombardment destroyed much of the early crustal rock and much of the remaining crust has been destroyed by weathering and erosion or recycled deep into the interior through plate tectonics.
Now more tests are required on the diamonds “to further the lively debate on whether the early Earth was hot, or not,” said Dr Williams. Dr Martin Van Kranendonk, senior geologist with the Geological Survey of Western Australia, commented:
“Any information about the very early Earth is fantastic, it’s like a Christmas present for geoscientists. This work provides a new constraint for geoscientists to consider how the Earth formed into the planet it is today. It’s another piece in the early Earth puzzle.”
Hey... what’s race got to do with it?
Sorry...just kidding, check this out though.......
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html
They’ll crater the diamond market if De Beers don’t kill them first, huh?
Well, if ya watch “Ice Road Truckers”....it sure seems like DeBeers has a huge honkin’ overhead.....as opposed to Billy-Bob pencil neck in his lab.
Only time will tell.
that show is awsome!
What method's used to date the zircon?
From Wikipeadia: Uranium-lead dating is usually performed on the mineral "zircon" (ZrSiO4), though it can be used on other materials. Zircon incorporates uranium atoms into its crystalline structure as substitutes for zirconium, but strongly rejects lead. It has a very high blocking temperature, is resistant to mechanical weathering and is very chemically inert.
This is my bet. But there might be other data. Was it incorporated in sediment, which if precambrian, by cross-cutting relationships would make it older, and the diamonds in it even older....
Gee, I love that kind'a talk.
All to God.
I agree, I love Ice Road Truckers! Definitely gonna buy it off the History Channel’s online store.
Soooooo, the chicks have been waitin' fer da prize since the gitgo?
Thats gotta mean they travelled back in time.......
See americanantigravity.com for the true story of how the earth-moon system formed.
OMG! I can’t believe I wasted some much time is school when I could have just been watching James Bond movies all along. Dang! The waisted years!
Thermodynamically, diamonds are metastable. Graphite is the lowest energy state of carbon.
Oh yeah, I just watched cult film maker, Jess Franco's 1970 opus, She Killed in Ecstasy and it was pretty much about embryonic stem cell research mixed with the story of Isis and Osiris. So like current events 40 years before they were current and ancient mythology all in about 88 minutes.
What college course could do that?
The zircon crystals come from the dawn of geological time. Later meteorite bombardment destroyed much of the early crustal rock and much of the remaining crust has been destroyed by weathering and erosion or recycled deep into the interior through plate tectonics.Thanks DaveLR for the bling bling ping, and Blam for the topic. This problem has many facets.
 |
||
| · join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · | ||
They left out the part that there was a footprint on it that looked like Helen Thomas’s.
bookmark
Whoops! Earth’s Oldest ‘Diamonds’ Actually Polishing Grit
LiveScience | 1/3/2014 | Becky Oskin
Posted on 1/3/2014 5:26:38 PM by aimhigh
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3108059/posts
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.