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New research finds Earth's surface was first sprinkled with fresh water some 4 billion years ago, a whole 500 million years earlier than previously thought.
The Jack Hills in Western Australia hold the oldest surviving material from the Earth's crust. For 4.4 billion years, the primordial minerals remained relatively unchanged by heat and pressure.in tiny crystals of the mineral zircon, we found unusually light isotopic signatures as far back as four billion years ago,"to analyze the teensy grains of zircon, and deduce which oxygen isotopes were present in the magma from which the crystals formed.
"This discovery not only sheds light on Earth's early history but also suggests landmasses and fresh water set the stage for life to flourish within a relatively short time frame – less than 600 million years after the planet formed," he
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Fresh findings: Earliest evidence of life-bringing freshwater on EarthNew Curtin-led research has found evidence that fresh water on Earth, which is essential for life, appeared about 4 billion years ago—5 hundred million years earlier than previously thought.
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Freshwater first appeared on Earth 4 billion years ago, ancient crystals hintOxygen ratios in ancient zircon crystals suggest that the planet’s water cycle got started hundreds of millions of years earlier than thought.
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