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Earth science

In the beginning. . .

Nature volume 409, pages 144–145 (2001)Cite this article

Grains of the mineral zircon have survived from way back in Earth's history. Analysis of these grains provides information on the state of our planet as long as 4.4 billion years ago.

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Figure 1: Earth's earliest history, in millions of years, starting from the origin of the Solar System; numbers on the right show absolute ages in billions of years.

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  1. Department of Earth Sciences ETH Zürich, NO C61, Sonneggstrasse 5, Zürich, CH-8092 , Switzerland

    Alex N. Halliday

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  1. Alex N. Halliday
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Correspondence to Alex N. Halliday.

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Halliday, A. In the beginning. . .. Nature 409, 144–145 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35051685

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