• Question: what was the oldest rock you have found?

    Asked by shaniabreen to Mark on 22 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Mark Hodson

      Mark Hodson answered on 22 Jun 2013:

      Hi Shaniabreen,

      the oldest rocks I have found come from the west coast of Scotland and are known as the Lewissean gneiss – they are about 3 billion years old, about two thirds of the age of the earth. It blows my mind when I can pick things up this old and study them. You can learn a lot about how the planet works from studying rocks like those.

      The rocks I’m most fond of (!) are the ones I studied during my PhD. They are found in Greenland and were part of volcanoes about 1300 million years ago.

      cheers

      m

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