Europium In Zirconium Gives Us Info About A Boring Billion Years
Zirconium crystals are the Earth’s time capsules. One of the things found in them is europium. Its analysis shows that about 1.8 to 0.8 billion years ago the Earth had a surprisingly thin crust.
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The Earth is roughly 4.6 billion years old. The large portion of its history is obscured by the geological mist of the very spotty geological record. Whenever we found a trustworthy source of information from Earth’s ancient history it a reason to celebrate. Now, a team of Chinese and American experts can celebrate as they found interesting information from the europium found in zircon crystals.
Their research was about the “boring billion years” that took place about 1.8 to 0.8 billion years. During this period our planet went through a time of strange geological calmness. And according to known fossils, even evolution slowed down by a lot. The researchers are convinced that this happened because of a dramatic decrease in Earth’s tectonic activity.
The scientists researched europium in crystals of zircon coming from this time period. Such crystals are sort of time capsules that thanks to their resilient structure can keep information from ancient times. And we have already proven that the amount of europium in the zircon is correlated to the thickness of the Earth’s crust.
The new researched shows that during the boring billion years the Earth had a thin crust – even thinner than today. There were no large mountains on Earth as it was covered by oceans and very flat ground. That suggests almost all tectonic activity vanished as when it functions mountains grow which are later eaten by erosion bringing much-needed nutrients into the oceans. If these processes don’t work then geology and evolution stagnate.
So far, the researchers do not know why the Earth’s tectonic activity was slowed down and why it lasted a whole billion years.
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