Geologists have long debated whether a stony formation in Canada contains the world’s oldest rocks – new measurements make a ...

Rocks older than 4.03 billion years could shed light on Earth's earliest geological history, but they're incredibly rare.

Our planet has been asteroid-smashed, melted and eroded, enough that most of its original armor has been long buried. Except for one small chunk.

If the new age of these Canadian rocks is solid, they would be the first and only ones known to have survived Earth’s earliest, tumultuous time.

Rocks from the Hadean Eon, the first period in the geological timescale, have been dated in Québec. These are some of the ...

The new research compared two ratios of these isotopes: the long-lived samarium-147 to neodymium-143 and the shorter-lived samarium-146 to neodymium-142.

Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago, during the geological eon known as the Hadean. The name "Hadean" comes from the ...

The oldest terrestrial materials ever dated by scientists are extremely rare zircon minerals that were discovered in western ...

In their 2008 work, O’Neil and his colleagues analysed the chemical imprint left by the radioactive decay of the isotope samarium-146 into neodymium-142 to calculate that the Nuvvuagittuq rocks ...

New simulations reveal that an ancient ocean of magma located above the Earth's core continues to shape the planet's ...

Scientists agreed the rocky outcrops in a remote part of Quebec, Canada, were ancient. But were they really Earth’s oldest? New research suggests they are.

A groundbreaking discovery in northern Quebec has confirmed the existence of Earth's oldest known rocks, dating back 4.16 billion years. These ancient ...