Re: Question regarding the age of the earth
- From: Stuart <bigdakine@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:37:52 -0700 (PDT)
On Mar 30, 1:29 pm, Ihab Hussein <ihabhuss...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello,
Since I'm delurking, there is a question I would like to ask. How is
the age of the earth was measured? That is, how was it determined that
the age of the earth is 4.55 billion years or so.
The classic is Brent G. Dalrymple's boook "The Age of the Earth".
Dalrymple was former head of the USGS and wrote this book in part cuz
he got tired of going to court to testify against creationists.
Instead, his
book is now entered into evidence.
No creatobabbler has made the age of the earth a talking point in any
lawsuit
since.
For a brief answer to your question..
The oldest Earth materials are zircons which have been dated to
4.4Ga.,
as have the rocks of the lunar highlands.
The oldest Earth rocks rock come from the Canadian Slave province and
are dated
to 4.1Ga.
The figure you quote for the Earth's age is based on the Pb-Pb
metorite isochron.
Basically, this is the time since the Earth became a closed system
with respect to
U and Pb. In other words it had accumulated the vast bulk of its mass
by this time.
Thats probably as good a criteria for choosing the age of a planet as
one can get.
Stuart
.
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- From: Ihab Hussein
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