Scientists recently found the oldest thing on Earth, a zircon crystal, and it dates back to 4.4 billion years ago! Carbon dating is a helpful tool in order to date old things, but it's limited. Trace is joined by Elise Andrew from I F***king Love Science to talk about how exactly scientists were able to find the oldest thing on earth. Read More: Oldest Rock Speck Zeros In On Earth's Cooling Date news.discovery.com/earth/rocks-fossils/oldest-rock-speck-zeros-in-on-earths-cooling-date-140223.htm "The oldest remaining grain of early Earth's original solid rock crust has now been confirmed to be a 4.374-billion-year-old zircon crystal from Jack Hills, Australia." Uranium-Lead Dating geology.about.com/od/geotime_dating/a/uraniumlead.htm "Of all the isotopic dating methods in use today, the uranium-lead method is the oldest and, when done carefully, the most reliable. Unlike any other method, uranium-lead has a natural cross-check built into it that shows when nature has tampered with the evidence." Gem Found On Australian Sheep Ranch Is The Oldest Known Piece Of Earth, Scientists Find www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/gem-found-on-australian-sheep-ranch-is-the-oldest-known-piece-of-earth-scientists-find-20140224-hvdkd.html "Scientists using two different age-determining techniques have shown that a tiny zircon crystal found on a sheep ranch in Western Australia is the oldest known piece of our planet, dating to 4.4 billion years ago." Confirmed: Oldest Fragment of Early Earth is 4.4 Billion Years Old www.livescience.com/43584-earth-oldest-rock-jack-hills-zircon.html "Ever heard this life advice? When solving a big problem seems impossible, break it into smaller steps." Where Are the Oldest Rocks on Earth Found? www.livescience.com/32763-where-are-the-oldest-rocks-on-earth-found.html "You don't need to go to a museum to find really, really old things. Ordinary rocks, for example, may be millions or billions of years old, and are free for the taking." Zircon Chronology: Dating the Oldest Material on Earth www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/earth/cs_zircon_chronolgy.html "What are the oldest rocks on Earth, and how did they form? The material that holds the greatest insight into these fundamental questions, because it can contain a record of some of the earliest history of the Earth, is a mineral named zircon." Atom Probe en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_probe "The atom probe is a microscope used in material science that was invented in 1967 by Erwin Wilhelm Muller, J. A. Panitz, and S. Brooks McLane." Oldest Bit Of Crust Firms Up Idea Of A Cool Early Earth www.news.wisc.edu/22568 "A timeline of the history of our planet places the formation of the Jack Hills zircon and a 'cool early Earth' at 4.4 billion years." Hadean Age For A Post-Magma-Ocean Zircon Confirmed By Atom-Probe Tomography www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2075.html "The only physical evidence from the earliest phases of Earth's evolution comes from zircons, ancient mineral grains that can be dated using the U-Th-Pb geochronometer." Neodymium-142 Evidence For Hadean Mafic Crust www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5897/1828 "Neodymium-142 data for rocks from the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt in northern Quebec, Canada, show that some rock types have lower 142Nd/144Nd ratios than the terrestrrial standard." Oldest Known Rock on Earth Discovered www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?org=NSF&cntn_id=112299&preview=false "Canadian bedrock more than 4 billion years old may be the oldest known section of the Earth's early crust." Follow Elise on Twitter: twitter.com/elise_andrew Watch Elise on I F***ING LOVE SCIENCE: www.youtube.com/channel/UCvOTgnW7oj9ZWDd2y5TEApw Watch More: How Carbon Dating Works www.youtube.com/watch?v=54e5Bz7m3do TestTube Wild Card testtube.com/iflscience/new-dinosaur How Did Life Begin? www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofFhHcvasHA Photo © John Valley/ University of Wisconsin ____________________ DNews is dedicated to satisfying your curiosity and to bringing you mind-bending stories & perspectives you won't find anywhere else! New videos twice daily. Watch More DNews on TestTube testtube.com/dnews Subscribe now! www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=dnewschannel DNews on Twitter twitter.com/dnews Anthony Carboni on Twitter twitter.com/acarboni Laci Green on Twitter twitter.com/gogreen18 Trace Dominguez on Twitter twitter.com/trace501 DNews on Facebook facebook.com/DiscoveryNews DNews on Google+ gplus.to/dnews Discovery News discoverynews.com

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