Zircons may be best known as a birthstone of December, but they also record time much like tree rings, can tell the origin stories of planets, perhaps discover precious minerals beneath the Earth’s surface, even infer when continents rose from the oceans. Indeed, without zircons we would know very little about the Earth.
Keeping time with zircons
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/physical-world/2021/keeping-time-zircons
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