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Strange Rock Piles in Africa. PHOTO/DAILY
CAPE TOWN – Our world may seem fragile, but Earth has been around for a long time. If we traveled far into the past, would we find a completely different time?
The answer lies in some of the earliest remains on Earth's surface, discovered in a remote corner of the southern African plateau – a region known to geologists as the Barberton Greenstone Belt.
The geological formations of this region have proven difficult to decipher, despite many attempts. But new research suggests that the key to cracking this code lies in geologically young rocks located on the seabed of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of New Zealand.
This research begins with a detailed new geological map (by Cornel de Ronde) of part of the Barberton Greenstone Belt. This revealed a fragment of the ancient deep sea floor, which formed about 3.3 billion years ago.
However, there is something very strange about this seabed, and we need to study the rocks found in New Zealand, at the other end of Earth's long history, to understand it.
The researchers argue that the common belief that the ancient Earth was a hotter place, free of earthquakes, and that its surface was so weak that it was unable to form rigid plates, is wrong.
In contrast, the young Earth was constantly shaken by large earthquakes, triggered by the sliding of one tectonic plate under another at a subduction zone – as is happening in New Zealand today.
As reported by Science Alert, Tuesday (12/3/2024), geologists have long had difficulty interpreting ancient rocks in the Barberton Greenstone Belt.
Layers that form on land or in shallow water – for example, beautiful barite crystals that crystallize as evaporites, or the remains of bubbling mud pools – are found sitting on top of rocks that accumulate on the deep ocean floor. Blocks of volcanic rock, chert, sandstone and conglomerate are in a chaotic and mixed state.