How do we know the age of the Earth?

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Saint, Apr 22, 2017.

  1. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    LOL, that cracked me up...
     
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  3. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    My belief is not my stumbling block . What I see and you to but you might deny it. Science is not static we have continuously new information from the field ( exploration ) . As you pointed in wikipedia your site. Much of the result of the 4.5billion is based on the reference of the meteorite in the canyon El diablo. That reference is based that the meteorite, is assumed that the earth and the meteorite come from the same place from the same nebula, and the meteorite is a fragment that did not coalesced during earth formation. What about if the meteorite is an late comer long after the earth was formed ?
    I grant you the decay Uranium tho Lead is very good, but that adds an other question . As to who is older our sun or the earth , that we can think also that we might not be a product of the same supernova.
    I agree much with products formed in the lab , because we are in the same time scale , but when it come to cosmology on their time scale , I am not sure things are 100 % certain
     
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  5. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Well no, the main evidence is not the meteorite but the lead/uranium ratios in rocks from the Earth itself. That is why I focused on that in my previous response.

    The meteorite merely serves to suggest that the solar system itself seems to have an age similar to that of the Earth - thereby reinforcing the theory that it all condensed from the same primordial dust and gas cloud as part of a single process.

    Of course it is just evidence and not proof, just like anything else in science, but it is a solid and fairly well corroborated hypothesis. And so far as I know there is no contrary evidence to make us suspect there may be something wrong with it. So "fantasy" it is not.
     
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  7. karenmansker HSIRI Banned

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    Timojin: Most cosmologists would likely agree somewhat. The overall (average) composition of the earth is comparable to the (major, minor, and trace elements/isotopic) composition of a typical carbonaceous chondrite meteorite. This influences some to conclude that the earth and 'meteorites' have similar common origins - compositionally, at least - and ages, albeit earth continually re-cycles itself to form younger lithologic components. Also, from historical investigations of available meteorites, scientists see a full range of compositional meteorite types that are representative of most of the earth's litho-structural configuration - e.g., not discreet intervals, but on average: nickel -iron ~ core; stoney-iron ~ lower mantle; chondrite ~ upper mantle. [BTW, the 'crust' of the earth represents recycling of mostly deeper layer source material that interacts with shallow, surficial, and atmospheric processes - a sort of slag, or crust - one might say.] One might then entertain the likelihood that meteorites (en toto) might represent fragments of one or more such disagregated early planetesimals (now mostly residing in the asteroid belt) that were once more discrete (and magmatically segregated) bodies in our solar system. On occasion, we witness fragments of these planetisimals (meteorites) as they impact the earth. (all IMO, of course!)
     
  8. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=age of sun

    This (age of the Sun) corroborates the figure origin gave for the age of the Earth, by means of a supercomputer model we have of the Sun's neutrino emissions related to its age, which we have measured, repeatedly, over a period of over 30 years. And always with the same result.

    If you compare this to the age of the universe given in the book of Genesis, you will find that the book of Genesis is much less consistent, because it is not a science textbook.
     
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2017
  9. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    6000 ~ 9000 years only.
     
  10. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    If you're guessing try a little older

    In fact try a WHOLE LOT OLDER

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  11. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    One can hardly resist asking the question:

    If the Bible went and told you to jump off a cliff, would you?
     
  12. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    If I had reached some of the biblical ages like 900 years a firm definite maybe

    Then again 1,000 would look very tempting so........? who knows

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  13. Forceman May the force be with you Registered Senior Member

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    R Rates as in Pressure rates P0 = P(o) + 1 + 2 + 3... + 4sin(theta) + Angular momentum + QMomentum(Inertia)IX = 100% % 6

    According to wiki's earticle on Qphysics:

    the quarks spin around without charge distribution making spherical orbitals look like planets to the naked eye.
     
  14. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    What are you talking about?
     
  15. Gawdzilla Sama Valued Senior Member

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    "Elders" with several lifetimes of experience living in the tribes, and never consulted after their normal lifespan had passed. It's almost like they didn't really live that long.
     
  16. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Forceman seems to be bonkers, judging by his other posts.
     
  17. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, thanks. I haven't read any other of his posts, which I now see is a good thing.

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  18. gebobs Registered Member

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    Better yet, I am sure things are not 100% certain...or ever will be. A bar of complete certainty is unreasonable for science. Science is essentially eternally reaching for the the truth, 100% certainty. It gets ever closer by fits and starts, but, like Zeno's arrow, never quite gets there.

    Or to put it another way: Proof is for moonshiners and mathematicians. Not science.

    Current best estimate is about 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years. In 50 years, it will be something like 4.543 ± 0.007 billion years, pinned down to just a few million years. If we're still doing science in a thousand years, perhaps it will be fine tuned to just a plus-minus a few thousand years. It is unlikely that future estimates will deviate from current estimates by more than several tens of millions of years.
     
  19. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    The more interesting question is not how long Earth has been here but how much longer will it continue to be here or how much longer will life exist on Earth. I think the answer to the latter is roughly another billion years.
     

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