New Record Ancient Crust: 4.28 Ga

Canada has always had a reputation for ancient rocks, but the September 26 Science puts a new jewel in Canada's crown in a paper reporting a bedrock outcrop that dates back to approximately 4.28 billion years, well into the Hadean eon (or, for purists, the Eoarchean Era). The previous oldest known rock, from about 4.03 Ga, was the Acasta gneiss, also Canadian.

The locality is in the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt by Porpoise Cove, way up by the north tip of Labrador on Hudson Bay. This photo, by coauthor Don Francis of McGill University, shows the look of the countryside there, scraped clean and flat by generations of glaciers. It's a geologist's dreamland. The Saskatoon StarPhoenix reports that the local Inuit tribe that oversees the site is pondering its potential for tourism. I know I'd go see it.

Shake sits in the Nuvvuagittuq — Courtesy Don Francis