A ‘cosmic clock’ in tiny crystals has revealed the rise and fall of Australia’s ancient landscapes

The remnants of violent stellar explosions where cosmic rays are born. NASA/ESA/The Hubble Collaboration/R. A. Fesen/J. Long, CC BY

Australia’s iconic red landscapes have been home to Aboriginal culture and recorded in songlines for tens of thousands of years. But further clues on just how ancient this landscape is come from far beyond Earth: cosmic rays that leave telltale fingerprints inside minerals at Earth’s surface.

In our new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we show how this “cosmic clock” uncovers the evolution of rivers, coasts and habitats.