He continued studying the rocks, raising his hypothesis about older rocks from time to time at geology conferences, while tracking advances in geochronology — the science of determining the age of rocks and embedded minerals. Their discovery calls into question the idea that the India-Asia collision would have obliterated any older metamorphic rocks. “The much older rocks we’ve found have escaped that destructive process,” Joshi, former professor of geology at the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi told The Telegraph. The presence of ancient rocks in the Himalayas is therefore not, in itself, unexpected. If confirmed, these links would help refine models of how continents collided and fused nearly two billion years ago.

Source: The Telegraph March 02, 2026 02:54 UTC