Sentences with phrase «australian zircons»

The new study confirms that zircon crystals from Western Australia's Jack Hills region crystallized 4.4 billion years ago, building on earlier studies that used lead isotopes to date the Australian zircons and identify them as the oldest bits of the Earth's crust.

Not exact matches

Then in 2004, geochronologists at Berkeley — Ludwig, Renne, and Roland Mundil, working with Australian geologist Ian Metcalfe — improved the pretreatment of volcanic zircon samples gathered in China.

But a speck of zircon found in the Australian outback is proving priceless to geologists.