Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Hanika Rizo, Associate Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University

Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago, during the geological eon known as the Hadean. The name “Hadean” comes from the Greek god of the underworld, reflecting the extreme heat that likely characterized the planet at the time.

By 4.35 billion years ago, the Earth might have cooled down enough for the first crust to form and life to emerge.

However, very little is known about this early chapter in Earth’s history, as rocks and minerals from that time are extremely rare. This lack of preserved geological records makes it difficult to reconstruct what the Earth looked like during the Hadean Eon, leaving many questions about its earliest evolution unanswered.

We are part of a research team that has confirmed the oldest known rocks on Earth are located in northern Québec. Dating back more than four billion years, these rocks provide a rare and invaluable glimpse into the origins of our planet.

Remains from the Hadean Eon

The Hadean Eon is the first period in the geological timescale, spanning from Earth’s formation 4.6 billion years ago and ending around 4.03 billion years ago.

The oldest terrestrial materials ever dated by scientists are extremely rare zircon minerals that were discovered in western Australia. These zircons were formed as early as 4.4 billion years ago, and while their host rock eroded away, the durability of zircons allowed them to be preserved for a long time.

Studies of these zircon minerals has given us clues about the Hadean environment, and the formation and evolution of Earth’s oldest crust. The zircons’ chemistry suggests that they formed in magmas produced by the melting of sediments deposited at the bottom of an ancient ocean. This suggests that the zircons are evidence that the Hadean Eon cooled rapidly, and liquid water oceans were formed early on.

Other research on the Hadean zircons suggests that the Earth’s earliest crust was mafic (rich in magnesium and iron). Until recently, however, the existence of that crust remained to be confirmed.

In 2008, a study led by one of us — associate professor Jonathan O’Neil (then a McGill University doctoral student) — proposed that rocks of this ancient crust had been preserved in northern Québec and were the only known vestige of the Hadean.

Since then, the age of those rocks — found in the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt — has been controversial and the subject of ongoing scientific debate.

‘Big, old solid rock’

The Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt is located in the northernmost region of Québec, in the Nunavik region above the 55th parallel. Most of the rocks there are metamorphosed volcanic rocks, rich in magnesium and iron. The most common rocks in the belt are called the Ujaraaluk rocks, meaning “big old solid rock” in Inuktitut.

The age of 4.3 billion years was proposed after variations in neodymium-142 were detected, an isotope produced exclusively during the Hadean through the radioactive decay of samarium-146. The relationship between samarium and neodymium isotope abundances had been previously used to date meteorites and lunar rocks, but before 2008 had never been applied to Earth rocks.

This interpretation, however, was challenged by several research groups, some of whom studied zircons within the belt and proposed a younger age of at most 3.78 billion years, placing the rocks in the Archean Eon instead.

Confirming the Hadean Age

In the summer of 2017, we returned to the Nuvvuagittuq belt to take a closer look at the ancient rocks. This time, we collected intrusive rocks — called metagabbros — that cut across the Ujaraaluk rock formation, hoping to obtain independent age constraints. The fact that these newly studied metagabbros are in intrusion in the Ujaraaluk rocks implies that the latter must be older.

The project was led by masters student Chris Sole at the University of Ottawa, who joined us in the field. Back in the laboratory, we collaborated with French geochronologist Jean-Louis Paquette. Additionally, two undergraduate students — David Benn (University of Ottawa) and Joeli Plakholm (Carleton University) participated to the project.

We combined our field observations with petrology, geochemistry, geochronology and applied two independent samarium-neodymium age dating methods, dating techniques used to assess the absolute ages of magmatic rocks, before they became metamorphic rocks. Both assessments yielded the same result: the intrusive rocks are 4.16 billion years old.

The oldest rocks

Since these metagabbros cut across the Ujaraaluk formation, the Ujaraaluk rocks must be even older, placing them firmly in the Hadean Eon.

Studying the Nuvvuagittuq rocks, the only preserved rocks from the Hadean, provides a unique opportunity to learn about the earliest history of our planet. They can help us understand how the first continents formed, and how and when Earth’s environment evolved to become habitable.

Hanika Rizo receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Jonathan O’Neil receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

– ref. The oldest rocks on Earth are more than four billion years old – https://theconversation.com/the-oldest-rocks-on-earth-are-more-than-four-billion-years-old-259657

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Daniel Atlin, Adjunct Professor, Gordon S. Lang School of Business, University of Guelph

Trying to navigate an environment where massive disruption and unprecedented change is the norm presents a challenge for business leaders everywhere.

Social-purpose, multi-stakeholder organizations like post-secondary institutions, hospitals, governments and NGOs are particularly affected.

The practice of “sense-making” — making sense of the situations people find themselves in, in the words of organizational theorist Karl Weick — offers an innovative and timely framework that can help social-purpose leaders address complexity.

Senior post-secondary leaders study

Management experts have described sense-making as the key skill needed in an age of disruption. This has been confirmed through my research while completing a master’s degree in change leadership.

I interviewed more than two dozen senior leaders in complex organizations in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand — the majority of whom were in the post-secondary sector. I found the leaders I interviewed were intuitively using elements from Weick’s organizational sense-making framework.

As one leader shared:

“The first thing you need to do is to recognize that it’s your role to help the rest of your community make sense of what’s happening around you. It’s something that I take very seriously.”

Deborah Ancona, professor of management at MIT, says:

“Sense-making is most often needed when our understanding of the world becomes unintelligible in some way. This occurs when the environment is changing rapidly, presenting us with surprises for which we are unprepared or confronting us with adaptive, rather than technical problems to solve.”

Leading in ‘age of outrage’

Social-purpose organizations face common issues such as a lack of funding, system fragmentation, competing stakeholders, new entrants and the challenges of emerging technologies.

They are also at the centre of what business and public policy professor Karthik Ramana describes as “the age of outrage,” reflected in heightened polarization. Against this backdrop, it’s increasingly challenging to attract and retain leaders.

I heard from leaders who felt they didn’t have the proper training for the job or support once they started their roles. In part, this is because few of them, including those involved in their hiring, seem to realize the actual messiness inherent within their organizations.

This brings to mind the parable that writer David Foster Wallace used in his 2005 convocation speech at Kenyon College, in which two young fish are told by an older fish that they are swimming in water. One of the young fish then turns to the other in surprise and says: “What is water anyway?”

Lack of agency

I heard from various leaders who experienced an “aha” moment when they realized they were immersed within a fluid and dynamic organizational environment that they were expected to run like a traditional business. This realization gave them a framework to understand the lack of agency they often experienced.

The challenge with social-purpose organizations is that they’re complex adaptive systems in which individual interactions form an ever-changing array of networks generating emergent behaviours that are often unpredictable. Complex adaptive systems also tend to revert to the status quo when faced with change.

So how do social-purpose leaders navigate change and this challenging organizational context? They wrap their efforts around purpose. It’s an anchor point and unifying focus for leaders, teams and all stakeholders.

4 strategies

Based on my research, I’ve identified four main sense-making strategies that leaders use:

Exploration and map-making: These pursuits help leaders extract a steady flow of information and data from their interactions both inside and outside their organizations. This allows them to develop high-level, adaptive frameworks that are constantly in flux — similar to Google Maps, as it generates live snapshots of traffic flows and suggested routes.

Storytelling and narrative development: Leaders use storytelling and narrative development to project ideas, purposes and visions into the future. This allows them to connect emotionally and inspire people and communities. Recognizing their role as storyteller-in-chief can align disparate parts of an organization into a coherent and engaged whole.

Invention and improvisation: These are employed by leaders to test assumptions as they learn what works and what doesn’t. This approach allows them to respond in real time to the never-ending flow of new information. Without taking risks, leaders are at risk of being stuck in paralysis.

Adaptation and collaboration allows leaders to help their organizations remain relevant. Leaders spoke about the need to foster adaptation. They also stressed the need to attract new resources through collaboration across like-minded institutions, governments, funding partners and the private sector.

Embracing a sense-making mindset

Thinking that benefits the interests and perspectives of the total enterprise is a critical but challenging task for leaders in social- purpose organizations.

Time and energy — two scarce resources — are necessary to build aligned and high-performing teams and to break down silos. Team alignment cannot be achieved through the occasional team-building session, but requires an ongoing commitment and a well-articulated plan.

Social-purpose organizations need practices, frameworks and metrics that are tailored to organizations’ unique needs. Rather than spending resources, time and energy on strategic plans, some leaders are building more flexible strategic frameworks or using strategic foresight to guide an innovative vision for the future.

Leadership can be lonely

It’s also important to remember that leadership can be lonely. To survive and thrive, social-purpose leaders must remember to seek out their own coaches and build communities of practice to enhance their lived experience and activities.

Developing an outer shell to weather criticism also helps. While leaders can’t please everyone, sense-making leaders find strength and build endurance in the recognition that the roles they play are meaningful, satisfying and essential — not only within the organizations they serve but through the collective work their organizations accomplish in the world.

Leaders (and board members) must realize that hiring the same people with the same profile as the past won’t make an organization ready for change, but instead reinforces the status quo.

By recognizing the messiness of their organizations and using sense-making skills, leaders in social-purpose organizations have better odds of surviving the perils and challenges of massive disruption and unprecedented change.

Daniel Atlin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. University leaders have to make sense of massive disruption — 4 ways they do it – https://theconversation.com/university-leaders-have-to-make-sense-of-massive-disruption-4-ways-they-do-it-257866

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Yasemin Pacaci, Postdoctoral Fellow, Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, Ontario

Mindfulness and self-compassion have become popular tools for improving mental health and well-being in the workplace. Mindfulness involves paying attention to thoughts, emotions and surroundings without judgment, much like watching clouds pass in the sky. This moment-to-moment awareness helps people respond skilfully rather than react automatically.

Self-compassion builds on mindfulness by encouraging people to meet difficult feelings and experiences with kindness instead of resistance. In other words, mindfulness helps people first recognize their suffering, while self-compassion helps people respond with kindness.

Both mindfulness and self-compassion can be practised formally through meditations like body scans, breath awareness or loving-kindness meditation, and informally by bringing mindful attention to mind, emotions and everyday activities.

Both practices have the potential to transform dysfunctional workplaces by improving the collective well-being and personal agency of employees.

Yet too often, these practices are introduced superficially to boost productivity and performance, rather than used to address the root causes of workplace stress. It’s a pattern I’ve witnessed repeatedly in my years as a mindfulness teacher and researcher.

This brings into question whether these practices can thrive in capitalist systems that prioritize profit over people. But rather than rejecting mindfulness and self-compassion as incompatible with capitalism, I argue we need a more thoughtful framework that stays true to their essence while tackling common misunderstandings and misuses.

How capitalism is co-opting mindfulness

Academic and practitioner critics have raised concerns about how mindfulness and self-compassion practices are being integrated into corporate life.

Some of these critics argue that companies are incorporating mindfulness and self-compassion practices not to fix systemic problems, but to boost their own productivity and shift the responsibility for stress onto employees.

In these cases, critics use the term “McMindfulness” to describe a commodified, diluted version of mindfulness that is stripped of its roots in Buddhist philosophy.

Some critics have gone further, claiming that mindfulness encourages contentment with the status quo and may make employees more vulnerable to exploitation.

While these critiques raise valid concerns, they often create more confusion and resistance than meaningful dialogue or practical solutions for implementing mindfulness and self-compassion in the workplace.

Empirical research offers a more nuanced perspective. Mindfulness and self-compassion, when practised consistently, can strengthen employees’ sense of agency, improve their self-confidence, support ethical decision-making and action for meaningful change.

Done right, mindfulness can help workers

Employees who develop mindfulness and self-compassion skills tend to respond in three main ways, according to research.

First, they become more aware of dysfunction in the workplace. This awareness can empower them to speak up and advocate for change if it’s within their control and in their own interest. It can also cause them to engage in more ethical practices, especially in toxic work environments.

Second, they are more likely to leave toxic work environments. When employees realize change is beyond their control, mindfulness and self-compassion can cause them to lose their motivation for work and, indirectly, might prompt them to leave toxic workplaces altogether.

Third, for employees who end up staying in their roles, they are better able to acknowledge and become less effected by stressors. However, this doesn’t mean they become more productive or blindly enthusiastic about their jobs. Mindfulness enhances motivation that stems from genuine interest, not from pressure or obligation.

It’s important to note that mindfulness doesn’t mean these employees condone poor conditions or toxic practices. Rather, it helps them see reality more clearly, without denial or avoidance.

And for employers hoping mindfulness will instantly boost engagement or drive performance, research shows employees may actually become more critical of their work and less willing to perform mundane tasks.

Towards true workplace transformation

Mindfulness alone cannot fix a toxic workplace. When organizations introduce mindfulness programs without first addressing the underlying causes of stress or toxicity, they’re unlikely to see the results they expect.

If organizations want to reap the full benefits of mindfulness and self-compassion, they need to take a more deliberate, structured approach. Psychologist Kurt Lewin’s three-step change management model offers a useful guide:

Step 1. Unfreeze: Address the root causes of workplace stress

• Address systemic stressors. Before introducing any well-being initiative, organizations must confront actual sources of stress such as excessive workloads, toxic leadership and job insecurity.
• Correct misunderstandings. Clarify what mindfulness and self-compassion actually is to reduce scepticism and confusion.
• Avoid mandatory participation. Giving employees the freedom to opt in fosters authentic engagement and sustains interest.

Step 2. Change: Implement practices ethically and intentionally

• Lead by example at the top. Instead of only offering these programs to employees, leaders should engage with mindfulness and self-compassion practices themselves. When senior figures lead by example, these programs gain legitimacy and workplaces foster more ethical, people-centered leadership that goes beyond performance and productivity.
• Ensure cultural sensitivity. Small cultural adaptations can improve the inclusion of mindfulness and self-compassion sessions. For instance, research has found that in Hispanic communities, using familiar stories or proverbs can make mindfulness sessions more relatable and improve engagement.
• Preserve ethical foundations. Present mindfulness and self-compassion as universal practices, not tied to any one religion. This preserves their ethical underpinnings while ensuring they remain universal and accessible to all.

Step 3. Freeze: Embed mindfulness and self-compassion into workplace culture

• Encourage small, daily practices. Offer simple tools like journaling or mindful breathing breaks that employees can tailor to their own needs and schedules.
• Provide ongoing support. Create time and space for continued practice, such as guided meditations, mindfulness moments in meetings or gratitude boards so new habits take root.
• Measure impact holistically. Consider hiring qualified professionals to evaluate program effectiveness, address emerging needs and keep the organization moving forward.

Moving beyond wellness window-dressing

Mindfulness and self-compassion are not magic bullets, but they can still be powerful catalysts for change.

When introduced with a deliberate and thoughtful approach, mindfulness and self-compassion can help workplaces move beyond shallow wellness “hacks” toward truly transformative practices, even in high-pressure, profit-driven environments.

Far from serving as a quick fix or a mere productivity tool, these practices encourage employees to challenge the status quo, take meaningful action, build healthier relationships and make more ethical decisions. They can help individual employees flourish within and beyond their workplaces.

The true value of mindfulness and self-compassion practices lies not in short-term outcomes or surface-level improvements, but in helping individuals be more aware of themselves, their surroundings and the choices they make, which is beyond any outcome or context.

Yasemin Pacaci does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Workplaces have embraced mindfulness and self-compassion — but did capitalism hijack their true purpose? – https://theconversation.com/workplaces-have-embraced-mindfulness-and-self-compassion-but-did-capitalism-hijack-their-true-purpose-258043

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sara M. Grimes, Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy and Professor, McGill University

Parenting in the digital age can be stressful and demands a lot from parents.

The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) recently released its annual Online Safety Survey that discovered almost 50 per cent of parents surveyed aren’t using parental controls to manage their children’s devices. These are tools that would ostensibly help parents filter out inappropriate content or unwanted interactions on their children’s devices.

The FOSI authors conclude the reason parents aren’t using the tools is because they feel “overwhelmed” and recommend parents educate themselves as a good first step toward broader use.

While overwhelm is a real thing, we suggest a bigger problem with parental controls is how they are designed. This includes how little attention is given to supporting open communication between parents and children.

Once a year for the past three years, we’ve asked the same 33 children (initially aged six to 12) what they think about content ratings, online safety, game monetization and privacy.
Our team’s combined expertise in communication, education, policy and game studies analyzed their answers.

We also asked their parents how they mediated their kids’ gaming. Nearly half of them don’t use parental controls either. They say parental controls don’t always work as promised, offer little context about how settings affect gameplay and force binary choices that don’t align with household rules or with children’s maturity levels.

The parents we asked said they aren’t avoiding parental controls because they feel overwhelmed by them. It’s that the tools are poorly designed.

Parent controls can introduce more problems

At the same time, many of the parents described themselves as highly engaged in their child’s gameplay; talking with their children regularly or encouraging play in shared, supervised spaces. Several said they choose to trust their child rather than set top-down limits.

Our findings align with previous research on digital parenting. In one British study, parents said they felt some controls were valuable supplements to mediation, while other controls were poorly designed, introducing more problems than solutions.

The use of parental controls doesn’t necessarily translate to increased child safety. In fact, using parental controls can create a disconnect between parents and children on key safety issues.

Awareness of risks

Six children we interviewed were not aware their parents were using controls, and at least two children revealed they didn’t even know why a parent would use parental controls in the first place. In this context, parents’ efforts to protect their children had the unintended side effect of obscuring vital knowledge, leaving the children unaware of some of the key risks associated with playing online. Parental controls can remove opportunities to teach kids about safety if they aren’t part of the conversation.

We believe that the behind-the-scenes protections enabled by (some) parental controls can be detrimental to parent-child communication about online safety. What are the risks? How can children avoid the riskiest behaviour? What should they do when or if they’ve encountered danger?

Meanwhile, parents aren’t always familiar with the features and activities they are asked to restrict or allow. Very few parental controls contain information about how gameplay will be impacted by their settings. Many contain terms only someone familiar with the game would understand, while others are hard to navigate.

All of this can lead to misinterpretations and parent-child conflicts, making the tools even harder to use.

Power of communication

Open communication between parents and children on safety topics fosters trust, which increases the likelihood kids will turn to their parents for help when something dangerous happens.

It enables children to build resiliency, which in turn reduces the risk they’ll be harmed by negative online encounters.

Research also suggests that parent-child communication may be more effective at helping to avoid harm than embedded restrictions enabled by parental controls.

The importance of open communication is also emphasized in the FOSI report. In households where conversations about online safety happened regularly (six times or more a year), parents and children were both more likely to view parental controls as a useful and valuable tool for online safety.

This, the authors conclude, “supports the view of online safety as a collaborative effort as opposed to a priority imposed by parents on their children.”

On this point, we couldn’t agree more. Families would benefit from making parental controls and safety settings a family affair. Kids and parents have a lot to learn from each other about the digital world, and reviewing these systems together can provide a much-needed opening for crucial conversations about risk, safety and what kids find meaningful about digital play.

Rethinking safety tools

Let’s not pretend parental controls are a panacea for child safety.

Many parental controls contain serious design flaws and limitations. Very few comprehensively address the needs and concerns of either children or their parents.

Now that lawmakers are starting to make parental controls a mandatory part of new child safety legislation, we urgently need to start taking a closer and more critical look at what they can and can’t do.

Parental controls can be a useful tool when they are designed well, applied with transparency, and provide families with ample options so they can be tailored to not only fit with but foster household rules and open communication.

There’s a lot of work to be done before this is the standard. But also a growing impetus for game and other tech companies to make it happen.

Sara M. Grimes receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada,

Riley McNair does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Parental controls on children’s tech devices are out of touch with child’s play – https://theconversation.com/parental-controls-on-childrens-tech-devices-are-out-of-touch-with-childs-play-257874

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Hanika Rizo, Associate Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University

Earth formed about 4.6 billion years ago, during the geological eon known as the Hadean. The name “Hadean” comes from the Greek god of the underworld, reflecting the extreme heat that likely characterized the planet at the time.

By 4.35 billion years ago, the Earth might have cooled down enough for the first crust to form and life to emerge.

However, very little is known about this early chapter in Earth’s history, as rocks and minerals from that time are extremely rare. This lack of preserved geological records makes it difficult to reconstruct what the Earth looked like during the Hadean Eon, leaving many questions about its earliest evolution unanswered.

We are part of a research team that has confirmed the oldest known rocks on Earth are located in northern Québec. Dating back 4.3 billion years, these rocks provide a rare and invaluable glimpse into the origins of our planet.

Remains from the Hadean Eon

The Hadean Eon is the first period in the geological timescale, spanning from Earth’s formation 4.6 billion years ago and ending around 4.03 billion years ago.

The oldest terrestrial materials ever dated by scientists are extremely rare zircon minerals that were discovered in western Australia. These zircons were formed as early as 4.4 billion years ago, and while their host rock eroded away, the durability of zircons allowed them to be preserved for a long time.

Studies of these zircon minerals has given us clues about the Hadean environment, and the formation and evolution of Earth’s oldest crust. The zircons’ chemistry suggests that they formed in magmas produced by the melting of sediments deposited at the bottom of an ancient ocean. This suggests that the zircons are evidence that the Hadean Eon cooled rapidly, and liquid water oceans were formed early on.

Other research on the Hadean zircons suggests that the Earth’s earliest crust was mafic (rich in magnesium and iron). Until recently, however, the existence of that crust remained to be confirmed.

In 2008, a study led by associate professor Jonathan O’Neil (then a McGill University doctoral student) proposed that rocks of this ancient crust had been preserved in northern Québec and were the only known vestige of the Hadean.

Since then, the age of those rocks — found in the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt — has been controversial and the subject of ongoing scientific debate.

‘Big, old solid rock’

The Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt is located in the northernmost region of Québec, in the Nunavik region above the 55th parallel. Most of the rocks there are metamorphosed volcanic rocks, rich in magnesium and iron. The most common rocks in the belt are called the Ujaraaluk rocks, meaning “big old solid rock” in Inuktitut.

The age of 4.3 billion years was proposed after variations in neodymium-142 were detected, an isotope produced exclusively during the Hadean through the radioactive decay of samarium-146. The relationship between samarium and neodymium isotope abundances had been previously used to date meteorites and lunar rocks, but before 2008 had never been applied to Earth rocks.

This interpretation, however, was challenged by several research groups, some of whom studied zircons within the belt and proposed a younger age of at most 3.78 billion years, placing the rocks in the Archean Eon instead.

Confirming the Hadean Age

In the summer of 2017, we returned to the Nuvvuagittuq belt to take a closer look at the ancient rocks. This time, we collected intrusive rocks — called metagabbros — that cut across the Ujaraaluk rock formation, hoping to obtain independent age constraints. The fact that these newly studied metagabbros are in intrusion in the Ujaraaluk rocks implies that the latter must be older.

The project was led by masters student Chris Sole at the University of Ottawa, who joined us in the field. Back in the laboratory, we collaborated with French geochronologist Jean-Louis Paquette. Additionally, two undergraduate students — David Benn (University of Ottawa) and Joeli Plakholm (Carleton University) participated to the project.

We combined our field observations with petrology, geochemistry, geochronology and applied two independent samarium-neodymium age dating methods, dating techniques used to assess the absolute ages of magmatic rocks, before these become metamorphic rocks. Both assessments yielded the same result: the intrusive rocks are 4.16 billion years old.

The oldest rocks

Since these metagabbros cut across the Ujaraaluk formation, the Ujaraaluk rocks must be even older, placing them firmly in the Hadean Eon.

Studying the Nuvvuagittuq rocks, the only preserved rocks from the Hadean, provides a unique opportunity to learn about the earliest history of our planet. They can help us understand how the first continents formed, and how and when Earth’s environment evolved to become habitable.

Hanika Rizo receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Jonathan O’Neil receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

– ref. The oldest rocks on Earth are 4.3 billion years old – https://theconversation.com/the-oldest-rocks-on-earth-are-4-3-billion-years-old-259657