Abstract
As ancient rocks go, the oldest rocks in Ethiopia are not very old. The oldest rocks found on earth are more than 4 billion years old, in the ancient continental cores of Australia, Canada and Greenland. Few rocks have been found in Ethiopia with ages greater than 850 million years. This is because, earlier than this, Ethiopia and almost all the rocks of which she is formed did not exist.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Note that “orogeny” is the process of mountain building; “orogen” is the resulting mountain belt.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Williams, F.M. (2016). Beginnings: The First Half-Billion Years. In: Understanding Ethiopia. GeoGuide. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02180-5_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02180-5_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-02179-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02180-5
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)