Photo: Baffin’s cliffs are older than you think

Basalt cliffs around the shoreline of Baffin Island contain lava which is 4.5 billion years old, a research team has determined. These rock formations are called flood basalts because they were created by massive eruptions of lava. The solidified lava itself is only between 60 and 120 million years old, depending on its location. But the team, whose research has been published in the journal Science, discovered that the molten material from inside the Earth that erupted to create these plains of basaltic rock is 4.5 billion years old. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DON FRANCIS/MCGILL UNIVERSITY)