Archaean

The area coloured terra cotta surrounding Hudson Bay like a great horse-shoe is known as the Archaean Protaxis, composed of preCambrian rocks, the ancient back bone of the continent.

Mineral Resources of Northern Ontario 1923

This rocky highland stretches from a little north of the St. Lawrence River to Hudson Bay, around which it laps in the form of a V, and so is known as the Archaean V or shield.

The Red Man's Continent: a chronicle of aboriginal America Ellsworth Huntington 1911

He states that what is known as the Archaean protaxis, or that rugged, rocky region which stretches away from the St. Lawrence River, expanding to the northwestward, and occupying a large part of Northern Ontario, has produced and is constantly producing, a group of what may be called unique, or at least comparatively rare, economic minerals.

Our Northern Heritage 1906

Stromatolite reef from the Early Archaean era of Australia.

SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011

The oldest rocks of Victoria Land are apparently banded gneiss and gneissic granite, which may be taken as Archaean.

Perspective of Antarctica in 1911 2009

As regards Kaiser Wilhelm Land, the Gaussberg is a volcanic cone mainly composed of leucite-basalt, but its slopes are strewn with erratics presumably transported from the south and these include gneiss, mica-schist and quartzite, apparently Archaean.

Perspective of Antarctica in 1911 2009

In the Graham Land region there seems to be a fundamental rock closely resembling the Archaean.

Perspective of Antarctica in 1911 2009

The mounds in the foreground are stromatolites, colonies of photosynthetic bacteria which have been found as fossils in Early Archaean rocks of South Africa and Western Australia.

Archaean 2008

Stromatolites increased in abundance throughout the Archaean, but began to decline during the Proterozoic.

Archaean 2008

If you were able to travel back to visit the Earth during the Archaean, you would likely not recognize it is the same planet we inhabit today.

Archaean 2008