Stonehenge slabs found rock particles that are almost 2 billion years old

In 1958, Robert Phillips, a representative of the Van Moppes drilling company that helped restore

Stonehenge, drilled a cylindrical core fromcolumns of Stonehenge. This is a unique artifact, since today it is not possible to take samples of Stonehenge stones: the monument is under protection.

Later, when Phillips emigrated to the United States, he took froma sample. It was kept there as a souvenir. After the core was returned in 2018, the researchers were able to conduct a geochemical analysis of one of the pillars of Stonehenge.

Scientists have found that the towering standing stones of Stonehenge, or sarsens, are made from rocks that contain deposits ranging from 1.6 billion to 2 billion years old.

The analysis also showed that the core consists of smallquartz grains that fit tightly to each other like a mosaic. By the way, this explains the megalith's resistance to atmospheric influences over the past 5 thousand years. Scientists believe that this is why it became the ideal material for the construction of the monument.

Read more

The slowing down of the Earth's rotation caused the release of oxygen on the planet

See how a black hole begins to destroy a star

New particle discovered at the Large Hadron Collider

Sarsen stones are sandstone blocks foundin great numbers in the United Kingdom in the Salisbury Plain and in the Marlborough Hills in Wiltshire; in Kent; and to a lesser extent in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset and Hampshire