Temporal variation in relative zircon abundance throughout Earth history

Zircon from the Moon , Earth and Mars

Sub-micron-scale variations in Ti abundance in zircon

The Ti-in-zircon geothermometer [1,2] can constrain growth and/or re-equilibration temperatures of zircons and is particularly useful for constraining Archean and Hadean events where detrital zircon is the only surviving mineral. Zircons are often small (ca. <100 μm in the long dimension) and preserve evidence of fine-scale (sub-micron) compositional zonation. Methods for determining Ti adbunda...

Early History of the Moon: Zircon

Introduction: The Moon is believed to have formed from debris produced by a giant impact of a Mars sized body with the Earth (at around 4.51 Ga), forming a primitive body with a thick global layer of melt referred to as the Lunar Magma Ocean (LMO) [1]. The crystallization of LMO created internal strati-fication of the Moon forming main geochemical reservoirs. The surface features on the Moon we...

Zircon thermometer reveals minimum melting conditions on earliest Earth.

Ancient zircons from Western Australia's Jack Hills preserve a record of conditions that prevailed on Earth not long after its formation. Widely considered to have been a uniquely violent period geodynamically, the Hadean Eon [4.5 to 4.0 billion years ago (Ga)] has recently been interpreted by some as far more benign-possibly even characterized by oceans like those of the present day. Knowledge...

The relative protein abundance