Silver tells a volatile story of Earth's origin: Water was present during its birth
Thursday, May 13, 2010 - 13:11
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Tiny variations in the isotopic composition of silver in meteorites and Earth rocks are helping scientists put together a timetable of how our planet was assembled beginning 4.568 billion years ago. The new study, published in the journal Science, indicates that water and other key volatiles may have been present in at least some of Earth's original building blocks, rather than acquired later from comets, as some scientists have suggested.