The world's oldest Blue Zircon stone found!

Oldest gem stone in the world ever found buried, in a rocky land in Australia. Zircon crystal gemstone types of colored light blue, the estimated age of 4.4 billion years. Amazing!

The world's oldest Blue Zircon stone. (Picture from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/)

Small zircon crystals were discovered in 2001, on a rocky hill in the area of ​​Jack Hills, Australia. The location is about 800 km from Perth. The study of crystals and pretty it was announced by the team on Sunday, February 23, 2014.

Jack Hills, Australia, where rocks were found to contain the oldest known minerals on Earth, a 4.4 billion-year-old zircon. (Picture from: http://mukeshbalani.wordpress.com/)

"Zircon can be large and very pretty., But we studied are small, tend to be attractive. Except for geologists. If holding it in the palm of the hand, you must have good eyesight. Especially to be able to see it without a magnifying glass," said Professor Valley, as reported by the BBC, on Tuesday, February 25, 2014. The discovery was made in the United States researchers are trying to find out her age. Then they use two different techniques to find out the age of the beautiful gemstones.

The researchers say, the findings indicate that the surface layer of the earth was formed soon after the planet formed. Small gemstone that is thought to be part of the remains of the first surface of the earth is formed.

Cathodoluminescence image of a 400-μm zircon and the 3-D map made by atom-probe tomography of a group of ~10-nm clusters of radiogenic atoms of lead. (Picture from: http://www.csmonitor.com/)

Earth sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin, John Valley - who led the study - said, these findings indicate that the Earth's surface is not as hard as expected initially envisaged by researchers over the years, the findings were also published in the Journal Nature Geoscience.

In that study, the researchers initially using dating techniques based on radioactive decay of uranium to obtain mineral samples. However, because some investigators concluded that the technique could be wrong, due to the movement of atoms in the crystal. They also decided to use other methods more definitive.

The researchers used a technique known as atom-probe tomography. The technique was able to identify the atoms in the crystal and determine the mass number. As a result, the zircon crystal gemstone 4.4 billion years old.

As a reflection of the age of the gemstone, can be seen from the time of formation of the earth, which is about 4.5 billion years ago from a ball of molten rock. That means, the newly formed layers of the earth's surface after it, or about 100 million years later.

The crystal's age was also demonstrated that the surface layer of the earth, in which there is a crystal in it, only appeared about 160 million years after the formation of the solar system. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURVES | BBC]

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