Society | Mar 26

Researchers discover Japan's oldest rock in western Japan

Mar 26 (Kyodo) - Japanese researchers said Monday they have found the country's oldest known rock dating back 2.5 billion years in the western prefecture of Shimane, around 500 million years earlier than the previous oldest discovery.

The Hiroshima University team collected fragments of the rock located near a forest road in the town of Tsuwano. The granite-gneiss metamorphic rock, formed by intense heat, has a striped appearance.

Many rocks of the same age exist in North Korea and northeastern China, and analysis of the latest specimen is likely to provide insight into the formation of the Japanese archipelago, which was originally connected to the Asian continent.

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