The young Earth and the story of the early Archaean rocks of West Greenland

• Published in: Geology Today
• Main Author: Brooks, Kent
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2011
• Subjects: Greenland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2451.2011.00778.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1365-2451.2011.00778.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2451.2011.00778.x

Broadly the science of geology has passed through a number of distinct phases. In the early days attention was focussed on establishing a stratigraphic framework, concentrating on fossils and lithologies—the days of mapping and systematizing of sedimentary successions and the uncovering of the succession of life. Later, in the early twentieth century, geologists became much more interested in igneous rocks. By the 1960s attention turned to the ocean basins, culminating in the acceptance of the paradigm of plate tectonics. At the end of the 1960s, one area of geology that remained relatively little understood was the huge span of time represented by the Precambrian, about 80 per cent of Earth's history. By the 1960s this was changing. Radiometric dating was beginning to show the relative ages of such terranes and new methods of mapping were beginning to be used.