Listen to Short Wave on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. The mineral zircon is the oldest known piece of Earth existing on the surface today. The oldest bits date back as far as 4.37 ...

NATURAL zircons generally luminesce yellow or orange under ultra-violet light 1,2. The luminescence is not caused by the tetravalent uranium responsible for the absorption spectra of zircon 1,3.

If you were to hold a grain of zircon in your hand, it would look like nothing special — just a tiny, sand-sized crystal, no bigger than the width of a hair. Yet within that humble speck lies the ...

Zircon has economic importance as a raw material in its own right and also as a feedstock for the manufacture of zirconia (zirconium dioxide), zirconium chemicals and zirconium metal. The geological ...