(December 24, 2022 at 12:21 pm)LinuxGal Wrote:(December 24, 2022 at 11:46 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: depending on the dirt. some dirt contain zircon which could be 95% as old as the earth. some dirt may contain fragments of meteorites that somewhat older than earth.
Fun fact: An empty plastic bottle of water contains hydrogen atoms that were synthesized in the first few minutes of the Big Bang.
That's true of all elementary particles, indeed, all of matter. A chemical element's identity is simply its number of protons, and all the protons and neutrons (which can create protons via beta decay) were all present very, very early on.