Long-lost cube of Canada found in Australia

A square of Canada that pennyless off about 1.7 billion years ago has been found in Australia.

Geologists analyzed chemical signatures for really ancient sedimentary rocks in Georgetown, Queensland, that offer clues about where those rocks were when they formed.

At that time, a continents were flapping together to form a supercontinent called Nuna or Columbia. The information suggests that a Georgetown rocks pennyless off from Canada and collided with northern Australia around 1.6 billion years ago. It remained there even after Nuna broke detached 300 million years later.

The researchers found a geological signature that “cannot be related with any other rocks in Australia,” Adam Nordsvan, lead author of a new research, pronounced in an email to CBC News.

Instead, it’s “strikingly identical to other sedimentary rocks deposited during a identical time in North America, in sold a Wernecke Supergroup of a Yukon segment and a Athabasca Basin.”

This animation illustrates how a Georgetown terrane of present-day northern Queensland was creatively partial of North America some 1,700 million years ago. It afterwards assimilated Australia during around 1,600 million years ago during a arrangement of a supercontinent Nuna, and has remained partial of Australia since. (Adam Nordsvan/Curtin University)

Throughout Earth’s history, the continents drifted together and detached countless times. They many recently shaped a supercontinent Pangea 300 million years ago before violation adult to form today’s continents.

That creates it formidable to figure out how prior supercontinents were configured, or even accurately when they formed.

Nordsvan, a doctoral researcher during Curtin University in southwestern Australia, pronounced there was some discuss about possibly northeastern Australia was connected to North America or to Siberia when Nuna formed.

“Our information manners out a Siberia option,” he told CBC News.

The investigate was led by Adam Nordsvan, left, a PhD tyro during Curtin Univesity in Western Australia. He is graphic here investigate a ‘North-American sourced’ sediments in Georgetown, Australia, with co-author Ian Withnall of a Geological Survey of Queensland. (Amaury Pourteau)

The new study, published progressing in Jan in a biography Geology, also supports other justification that Nuna shaped about 1.6 billion years ago.

The investigate was saved by a Australian Research Council and Curtin University in Western Australia.

Economic implications

David Schneider, a highbrow of earth and environmental sciences during a University of Ottawa who was not concerned in a research, pronounced a investigate was good done. 

“This is flattering good justification that that partial of Australia was substantially trustworthy to Canada during some point,” pronounced Schnieder, who investigates a timing and rates of opposite processes and events involving a Earth’s tectonic plates.

He remarkable that a commentary could have mercantile implications. There are bullion deposits nearby Georgetown — definition it would be value exploring for bullion in a Yukon where it could have been attached.

Current sputter laminations in excellent to middle grained sandstone sedimentary rocks in Georgetown prove ancient shoal sea environments. The new investigate found a sediments were deposited off a seashore of North America adjacent to present-day Canada and after eliminated to Australia. (Adam Nordsvan/Curtin University)

The technique that Nordsvan and his group used to figure out a start of a Georgetown rocks involves looking for grains of a vegetable called zircon. Zircon mostly contains hot uranium, that decays to lead over time. The ratio of lead to uranium indicates when a zircon formed, with comparison rocks containing a aloft ratio of lead to uranium than younger rocks.

The zircon itself forms from magma, possibly from volcanoes or from underground, so a age provides a record of events involving magma in a internal area nearby where a zircon is deposited — a signature of sorts.

However, Schneider pronounced it’s not a usually technique used to endorse a age and start of rocks. More justification will be indispensable to couple a Georgetown rocks to Canada with some-more certainty. 

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canada-australia-nuna-supercontinent-1.4508780?cmp=rss