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APRIL 3, 2021
4.6-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Found In The Sahara Desert Is Older Than
Earth Itself
BY SHARIQUA AHMED

324 Words 2-Minute Listen

The EC 002 meteorite is the oldest-known volcanic rock ever found
(Credit: Maine Mineral and Gem Museum/Darryl Pitt)
An ancient volcanic space rock found in the Algerian Sahara Desert, may
provide scientists with insights into the building blocks of planets.
Dubbed Erg Chech 002, or EC 002, the meteorite is believed to be a
remnant of a protoplanet dating back 4.6 billion years — about the time
when our solar system was being formed.

The coarse-grained brown space rock, which is studded with green,
yellow-green, and yellow-brown crystals, was found by meteor hunters in
Adrar, Algeria, in May 2020. Unlike previously found meteorites, which
comprise a kind of volcanic rock called basalt, Erg Chech 002 is
composed of andesite. Though common in the Earth's subduction zones —
the areas where tectonic plates have collided and one has been pushed
beneath the other — andesite has rarely been seen in meteorites.

“I have been working on meteorites for more than 20 years now, and this
is possibly the most fantastic new meteorite I have ever seen,” says
Jean-Alix Barrat, a geochemist at the University of West Brittany, who
led the study.

The coarse-grained meteorite is studded with green, yellow-green, and
yellow-brown crystals (Credit: Maine Mineral and Gem Museum/Darryl Pitt)
The researchers, who published their findings in the journal PNAS on
March 16, 2021, believe the fragment was probably part of the crust of
an ancient protoplanet — a large, rocky body in the process of
developing into a planet. They speculate that the baby planet got
destroyed, or was devoured, by a bigger planet during our solar system's
formation. "This meteorite is the oldest magmatic rock analyzed to date
and sheds light on the formation of the primordial crusts that covered
the oldest protoplanets," Barrat and his team reported.

Since no known asteroid resembles EC 002, the researchers suspect that
no other remnants are left from these early times. They either fused to
form other planets or were destroyed. “When you go close to the
beginning of the solar system, it’s more and more complicated to get
samples,” says Barrat. “We probably will not find another sample older
than this one.”

Resources: Newscientist.com, livescience.com, phys.com

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