Details

LOT 2753

Morton Gneiss Plate Sections

CIRCA 3.5 BILLION YEARS B.P.

33 1/2 x 22 3/4 in. (233.7 kg total, 85 x 57.7 - 85 x 58 cm).

Comprising four rectangular sections of grey pink and black medium to coarse-grained biotite-quartz-plagioclase gneiss with polished upper face, each with wooden backing and one cracked. [4, No Reserve]

Provenance

Canadian Shield, Minnesota River Valley, Southwestern Minnesota, USA.
with Phillips, New York, 3 June 1995, no.81.
Private collection, Florida, acquired at the above sale.
with Sotheby’s, New York, 28 April 2021, no.27 (est. $2,500–3,500).

Footnotes

The world’s oldest known rocks come from the Canadian Shield area of North America. Among the most ancient is the present material, Morton Gneiss at approximately 3.5 billion years old believed to be part of Earth’s first planetary crust. The swirls and layers are a result of metamorphism that incurred when the original volcanic rock was buried to tremendous depths.