16555

MV still around?

I started gold panning in my early teenage years, and quite early on found a rather rich creek, from which I’ve extracted quite a bit of alluvial gold over the years; the creek is located on an ancient lava flow (I’ve been told it’s the third-largest in the world), and has yielded quite a number of gemstones, including two diamonds (of remarkably high quality: both have been cut – premium/fine cut, one 42 point H VVS2, the other F VVS1 63 points; both are very bright stones), lots of sapphires (most are small, but I’ve cut a few. A lot are parti-colour), and quite a lot of zircons, which are the point of this post.

Because of their resiliency and the impurities usually found in zircons (specifically uranium and thorium,) they’re useful in dating thing like early life (see this recent thread: http://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/topics/6632/). There are several extinct volcanoes around the site my zircons came from, but I don’t know how long ago they were active, nor exactly how old the lava flow is; there are a few places where the edge of the flow is clearly discernible, tough.

Would there be any point dating my zircons, and would they be likely to tell me anything interesting if I did?