A ‘cosmic clock’ in tiny crystals has revealed the rise and fall of Australia’s ancient landscapes
The Conversation • • world
Key Points:
- Researchers have developed a new "cosmic clock" technique using cosmogenic krypton trapped in zircon minerals to measure ancient landscape changes over millions of years, overcoming previous challenges with short-lived nuclides.
- By analyzing zircon-rich beach sands buried beneath the Nullarbor Plain in southern Australia, the study reveals the region experienced extremely slow erosion rates (~1 meter per million years) around 40 million years ago during a warm, wet climate.
- The slow sediment transport process concentrated durable minerals like zircon, contributing to economically valuable mineral deposits such as those mined at the Jacinth-Ambrosia zircon mine, which supplies about 25% of the global zircon.
- This method provides new insights into landscape stability and evolution, with potential applications for
