Thought that fits in he discussion:

Earth's Oldest Known Object on Display
By RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press Writer

MADISON, Wis. - A tiny speck of zircon crystal that is barely visible to
the eye is believed to be the oldest known piece of Earth at about 4.4
billion years old.

For the first time ever, the public will have a chance to see the particle
Saturday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where researchers in 2001
made the breakthrough discovery that the early Earth was much cooler than
previously believed based on analysis of the crystal.

To create buzz about an otherwise arcane subject, the university is
planning a daylong celebration of the ancient stone — capped with "The Rock
Concert" by jazz musicians who composed music to try to answer the
question: What does 4.4 billion years old sound like?

"This is it — the oldest thing ever. One day only," said Joe Skulan,
director of the UW-Madison Geology Museum, where the object will be
displayed — under police guard — from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. "The idea of having
a big celebration of something that's so tiny — we're playing with the
obvious absurdity of it."

With the aid of a microscope, anyone will be able to check out the tiny
grain, which measures less than two human hairs in diameter.

A concert by Jazz Passengers, a six-piece group from New York hired to
compose music for the event, will follow on Saturday evening. In posters
hanging on campus, the concert is advertised as "a loving musical tribute
to the oldest known object on Earth."

Composer Roy Nathanson said the concert will mix humor, jazz music,
computer-generated beats, and the occasional rocks being banged together
to "follow the geological history of how this zircon came about."

"It's an amazing story. The whole thing is something that captures your
imagination," said Nathanson, 53, a saxophonist who spent one year
composing the performance.

Analysis of the object in 2001 by John Valley, a UW-Madison professor of
geology and geophysics, startled researchers around the world by concluding
that the early Earth, instead of being a roiling ocean of magma, was cool
enough to have oceans and continents — key conditions for life.

"It's not very much to look at because it's so very small. But to me, the
miraculous thing about the crystal is that we've been able to make such
wide-ranging inferences about the early Earth," Valley said. "This is our
first glimpse into the earliest history of the Earth."

Valley found that the planet had cooled to about 100-degrees Centigrade
less than 200 million years after it was formed. Before the research, the
oldest evidence for liquid water on the planet was from a rock estimated to
be much younger — 3.8 billion years old.

As part of Saturday's event, Valley will display a brand new, $3 million
ion microprobe that he and other researchers will use to analyze tiny
samples such as the zircon crystal. The hand-built instrument weighs 11
tons and takes up an entire laboratory.

Valley, who has tried to obtain the equipment for 22 years, had to travel
to Scotland and Australia while he analyzed the zircon to use equipment
there. A federal grant is paying for most of the new instrument.

After the festivities the object will return to its native Australia with
Simon Wilde, professor at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western
Australia, who made its discovery in 1984. The sample will eventually be
put on display at a natural history museum in that country.


___



On Wed, 6 Apr 2005 14:37:52 EDT, Wirt Atmar <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Matthew writes:
>
>> I politely suggest that Wirt may have had a bit too much free time on his
>>  schedule, and so decided to "stir things up" a bit on the list - since
for
>>  recent past (thank goodness) the postings have been pretty much ON
topic. I
>>  also politely suggest (and hope) that this thread not devolve into a tit
>for
>>  tat contest as it seems to be heading towards one with Wirt's last
posting.
>
>You may have misunderstood the comment. Denys said that he had questions
>about evolution. As a card-carrying evolutionary biologist, I said
>(metaphorically) that I would be pleased to answer them.
>
>Wirt Atmar
>
>* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
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