Scientists have suspected for decades that there is a water-containing “transition zone” between the Earth’s upper mantle and lower mantle, but its existence is impossible to confirm due to its extreme depth. Spanning from 250 to 400 miles beneath the surface of the planet, the area is unreachable so no samples have ever been obtained to confirm its composition. The odd-looking little rock above, however, is providing some very compelling information. It is thought to have shot up from the transition zone at 40 MPH after a volcanic eruption.

The rock is a diamond that contains the minerals ringwoodite and walstromite, stones which only form under extremely high pressure. The unassuming little rock – far uglier and rougher than those used in jewelry – was found in a Brazilian riverbed in 2008. A team of geologists were running tests on the diamond to work out its age when they happened upon the mineral inclusions which were too small to see with the naked eye. Geophysicists had known for some time that the moisture-rich minerals must exist in the Earth’s mantle – and in large amounts – though no one had ever seen them. The minerals are composed of 1.5 to 2.5 percent water, an unusually high amount that indicates the transition zone may contain more water than all of the oceans on the surface.

The discovery is so important because it tells us a great deal about the composition of the planet. It not only confirms the presence of water in the transition zone, but could help to explain surface anomalies that occur due to that water. Weak spots beneath the continental plates, volcanic eruptions, and “uplift” spots may all have something to do with the transition zone water. Don’t expect to see any “Journey to the Center of the Earth” type subterranean ocean journeys in the future, though – the water in that part of the planet is all trapped in the minerals there.

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Humans have been playing rock music far before Elvis and the Beatles. These oblong stones which date back to the New Stone Age (8000-2500 BCE) were once thought to be grain grinders. They resided in the storeroom of the Natural History Museum in Paris since the early 20th century. By chance, an archaeologist tapped one with a mallet in 1994 and heard a resonating musical note – and he suddenly realized that these stones were ancient musical instruments.

The archaeologist who made the discovery, Erik Gonthier, had to work for several years to convince the scientific community that the stones were more than agricultural tools. Gonthier dug some pieces of foam out of the trash and put them under the stone as rests. He tapped the stone with a mallet again and the same musical tone rang out. They were eventually classified as lithophones, a combination of the words for “stone” and “sound.” The image above shows a lithophone setup called the Skiddaw Stones which resides in the Keswick Museum in England.

The stones at the Natural History Museum mainly originated in the Sahara and were probably taken to France by soldiers stationed in that area in the early 20th century. Made from different types of sandstone, the lithographs probably sounded very similar thousands of years ago as they do today. The stones would have been placed on brackets made of leather or plant fibers to be played, xylophone-style. Although we see them as musical, the lithophones could also have been used to communicate over long distances or to send danger signals.

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It looks a little like a piece of a broken plastic toy, but this lovely cerulean object is far more important. John Valley, professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has confirmed that it is the oldest known fragment of Earth. The piece of zircon was found in a riverbed in Jack Hills, Australia thanks to recent erosion. This tiny gem was determined to be 4.4 billion years old. Valley and the international team of researchers he worked with used atom probe tomography to date the material.

This new technology allows scientists to determine the mass of individual atoms within an object, providing an accurate picture of when the material was formed. The zircon also gave scientists a clearer view of how and when the Earth formed. The crystals were formed some 160 million years after our solar system formed, when our planet had ceased to become a fiery ball of magma and begun to cool enough for the crust to form. According to the team of scientists, these pretty little pieces of rock are like time capsules, cluing us in to just how and when the Earth became habitable.

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