Despite seeming like a relatively stable place, the Earth's surface has changed dramatically over the past 4.6 billion years. Mountains have been built and eroded, continents and oceans have moved ...

Cosmogenic surface exposure dating determines how long the surface of a rock has been exposed to cosmic rays, which are high-energy particles that enter the Earth’s atmosphere from space. When cosmic ...

Image: Tiny crystals called zircons are used to date oceanic crust. A newly developed method that detects tiny bits of zircon in rock reliably predicts the age of ocean crust more than 99 percent of ...

A remote outcrop in Canada harbors rocks that are at least 4.16 billion years old, researchers report June 26 in Science. If true, these rocks would be the oldest known on Earth and the first to date ...