Zircons form as a mineral within certain magmas as ... Bear in mind, this particular zircon crystal is absolutely tiny, barely visible to the naked eye. Despite its microscopic size, however ...

A 4.4 billion-year-old zircon crystal is providing new insight into how the early Earth cooled from a ball of magma and formed continents just 160 million years after the formation of our solar ...

In 2014, scientists announced that a tiny zircon crystal from Australia, 4.4 billion years old, was confirmed to be the oldest discovered fragment of Earth's crust. In 2020, a New York City jury ...

Zircon crystals can survive geological processes such as erosion and metamorphism, making them invaluable for geological studies and radiometric dating. Credit: Robert Simmon, based on data from ...