5 ms·

The strange race to track down a missing billion years

• newsbinator 5y ago
  > As Marshak alludes, finding out what happened during, and led to, the missing billion years is no trivial matter. There are two reasons for this. The first is that it just so happens to have occurred immediately before another inexplicable event – the sudden proliferation in the diversity of life on Earth 541 million years ago.
• pacificmint 5y ago
  Two related links that were posted recently: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvzk8q/why-one-billion-years-of-time-are-missing-in-the-grand-canyon https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvzk8q/why-one-billion-years... https://www.space.com/grand-canyon-rock-mystery-rodinia https://www.space.com/grand-canyon-rock-mystery-rodinia
• jb1991 5y ago
  > Today geologists know that the youngest of the hard, crystalline rocks are 1.7 billion years old, whereas the oldest in the sandstone layer were formed 550 million years ago. Isn’t this backward? Why is the oldest about 1 billion years later than the youngest?
  • _Microft 5y ago
    Maybe it helps if I remove some of the details: youngest of group A is x years old, oldest of group B (which is different from group A) is y years old
    • jb1991 5y ago
      Oh thanks, that makes sense. I found that phrase very confusing.