Massive-Scale Search and Screening of Hadean Zircons

Almost all our knowledge of Hadean Earth comes from Hadean zircons, the “black-box recorder” of minerals. Zircons can incorporate small amounts of the ancient ocean . All known Hadean zircons come from a single site, and they are gathered artisanally by individual graduate students. The solution is to search for more Hadean zircons with the steady, systematic approach of (for example) a diamond company, and then screen massive numbers of zircons for ocean and atmosphere data.