Ancient Earth

Our planet has a really long history, stretching back some 4.5 billion years.

While different parts of the Earth are different ages, Western Australia has some pretty old stuff. Let’s have a look at our ancient Earth.

• One of the oldest rocks on the Earth was found at Jack Hills in the Mid West, some 800km north of Perth. In these rocks were some crystals of zircon, the oldest of which was 4.4 billion years old.
• You don’t need to travel far to find ancient landscapes in Western Australia; a formation known as the Yilgarn Craton, which covers most of the southern half of our state, was formed 2.8 billion years ago. In comparison, the Perth Basin is less than 1 million years old.
• WA also harbours prehistoric life including stromatolites in Shark Bay. These column-like structures are made by bacteria that slowly take sediments from the water and join them together. While the stromatolites of Shark Bay are only 3,000 years old, these structures have been around for 2.7 billion years.
• Dinosaurs were known to live in Western Australia, with an 80km long line of their footprints discovered near Broome. It is thought the footprints were made 120 million years ago.