Oldest rockfall found on land dated 1.2. billion years old

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Rain and winds buffeted the northwestern Scottish coast as Zachary Killingback inspected a rock stuck in the mud. It wasn’t just any old stone: Weighing in at nearly a quarter of a million tons and measuring longer than a jumbo jet, the boulder had careened to its position some 1.2 billion years ago, which means it may be the oldest rockfall yet found on land.

As a team describes in a new study published in the journal Geology, the boulder plunged less than 50 feet into watery sediments, the force of impact cracking the rock and injecting mud into the fractures.

While the cliff it fell from has eroded away, the rockfall remains. Every rock has a story, and scientists are tasked with taking what’s known about our planet’s many physical processes to tease out tidbits of its past.

“It does show you how much amazing detail you can pull out of one block of rock if you approach it really carefully,” says Cara Burberry, structural geologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Source: National Geographic

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Wow that's such a long time ago...