The Barberton greenstone belt forms
A slice of Archean seafloor in South Africa survives 3.5 billion years almost unaltered.
- When
- Known to
- ± 50 million years
- Era
- Paleoarchean, Archean
Volcanic and sedimentary rocks accumulate in what is now eastern South Africa, and escape the deep cooking that destroyed almost everything of comparable age. Barberton preserves lavas, cherts, sediments and impact debris in readable sequence, making it — with the Pilbara — one of only two places where the Paleoarchean world can be examined rather than inferred.