Chapter 13 – Beginning of Time

The Pilbara is one of the oldest landforms on Earth. Its creation over 3.5 billion years ago provides a fascinating insight into the true genesis of our world. Not only do its ancient iron, basalt, and granite hills contain some of the oldest rocks on the planet, they also contain insights into the earliest life on Earth. And while the Pilbara is an ancient place, 500 kilometres to the southwest, in the Jack Hills of Western Australia, the discovery of an even more tantalising hint pushes the age of Australia’s oldest rocks back almost a billion years. That hint is a 4.4 billion-year-old zircon crystal from the Western Gneiss Terrain, an ancient sliver of crust now part of the Yilgarn Craton, whose existence is the first insight we have into the true genesis of the Earth. Not only do these ancient landforms represent the beginning of the Earth, they also represent the beginning of Australia. For it was the Pilbara Craton joining with the adjacent Yilgarn Craton, to form the Western Craton around 2 billion years ago, which forged the core from which the Australian continent was to ultimately evolve. Travelling through the Pilbara not only reinforced my connection to the majesty of the Great South Land and its transformational life path; it was another reminder of the power of the natural world and, accordingly, the importance of its teaching to my life.