the.com/gneiss
a rock so striped and twisted it survived being buried, baked, and squeezed for eons.
means A coarse-grained metamorphic rock with distinct banded layers of light and dark minerals, formed under intense heat and pressure deep within the Earth.
from From German Gneis, a miners' and quarrymen's term adopted into geology, possibly tracing back to an older root meaning 'to spark' or 'sparkling' (a cousin of words like the old German gneist, 'spark') — fitting for a rock whose mineral bands catch the light. It entered English in the 18th century as the science of rocks was taking shape.
- pronunciation
- Said exactly like the word nice
- age
- Acasta gneiss is over 4 billion years old
- banding
- Stripes form as minerals migrate under extreme pressure
- formation
- Born deep underground from baked, deformed older rock
- hardness
- Tough enough to face buildings and tombstones
lewisian gneiss — oldest rock in britain, found in the outer hebrides, dated to 2.9 billion years old
morton gneiss — oldest rock in north america, found in wyoming, dated to 4.0 billion years old
acasta gneiss — oldest rock in canada, located in the slave craton in northwest territories, dated to 4.03 billion years old