Study finds that Stonehenge Rocks are Almost 2 Billion Years

It’s an ancient rock. According to a recent study, a long-lost section of Stonehenge has shown the prehistoric monument is about 2 billion years old, providing new insight into its super-durable nature. In 1958, a worker renovating the monument in England brought home a rock piece that had recently been found and investigated by experts at the University of Brighton.

According to University of Brighton geomorphologist David Nash, who led the study, the fact that the monument’s materials developed 1.6 million years ago — back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth — explains why it has endured so long. Nash said, “This explains the stone’s resistance to weathering and why it made an ideal material for monument-building.”

The investigation revealed that the rock’s silcrete composition is mostly made up of grains held together by interlocking quartz crystals, making it very robust and resistant to deterioration even when exposed to the environment. The megaliths are built of silcrete, a type of stone that grew gradually within a few yards of the surface as groundwater washed through subsurface silt.

Stone 58, a core sample of the granite that had been preserved in the United States for decades before being returned to the United Kingdom for investigation in 2018, was investigated by researchers. The sarsens were built circa 2500 BC on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire by late Neolithic people.According to Reuters, experts presented the comprehensive investigation on Wednesday, which allowed them to peer into one of Stonehenge 52 sandstone megaliths, known as sarsens, and obtain information into its geology and chemistry. Stone 58 is roughly 23 feet tall above ground, with another 7 feet beneath and a weight of 24 tonnes.