How old is our planet Earth? After a bounteous controversy, scientists eventually accepted the age of the planet along with the rest of the solar system as about 4.55 billion years.
But, what are the lines of evidences this value is derived from? It is either a kind of energy or phenomena, from which the age has been computed, and not directly from material that is solely from the Earth.
It is perhaps, then for the first time scientists have discovered something from the earth that can eventually bolster towards the earth’s age - its ‘diamond’ that are aged more than 4 billion years.
Although some sedimentary rocks, as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion year-old were found previously, the newfound diamond is found with crystals of zircon trapped inside it. This diamond is nearly a billion years older than the previous oldest-known terrestrial diamonds.
And, interestingly, these were present in material that is found to have crystallized within 300 million years of the Earth’s formation.
Found in the Jack Hills region of Western Australia, the gems along with their inestimable value are also as precious for the geochemists and geologists.
Thus the ‘perhaps’ oldest material on the planet can help scientists with the kind of information hat can reveal the mystery of the Earth’s formation.
