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 ...

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 ...

When dinosaur fossils surface at a site, it is often not possible to tell how many millions of years ago their bones were buried. While the different strata of sedimentary rock represent periods 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 ...