The age of the earth

geo · Tue Oct 12, 2010 2:16 pm

So, like, the earth is pretty old, right?

johnson1010 · Tue Oct 12, 2010 2:26 pm

Totally.

It's like.... whooooah, you know what i mean?

geo · Wed Oct 13, 2010 12:08 pm

Whoa, dude! This book, Exploring Your World, by National Geographic says the earth is 4.6 billion years old. Those guys should know, right?

Also, this one web site says the earth is, like, freakin' old. Here's an excerpt:


	Quote: There can be no doubt about the Earth’s antiquity; the evidence is abundant, conclusive, and readily available to all who care to examine it. The best evidence is contained in the Earth’s incomplete and complex but accurate stratigraphic record — a record that has been the subject of nearly two centuries of study. Slowly and painstakingly, geologists have assembled this record into the generalized geologic time scale shown in Figure 1. This was done by observing the relative age sequence of rock units in a given area and determining, from stratigraphic relations, which rock units are younger, which are older, and what assemblages of fossils are contained in each unit. Using fossils to correlate from area to area, geologists have been able to work out a relative worldwide order of rock formations and to divide the rock record and geologic time into the eras, periods, and epochs shown in Figure 1. The last modification to the geologic time scale of Figure 1 was in the 1930s, before radiometric dating was fully developed, when the Oligocene Epoch was inserted between the Eocene and the Miocene. Although early stratigraphers could determine the relative order of rock units and fossils, they could only estimate the lengths of time involved by observing the rates of present geologic processes and comparing the rocks produced by those processes with those preserved in the stratigraphic record. With the development of modern radiometric dating methods in the late 1940s and 1950s, it was possible for the first time not only to measure the lengths of the eras, periods, and epochs but also to check the relative order of these geologic time units. Radiometric dating verified that the relative time scale determined by stratigraphers and paleontologists (Figure 1) is absolutely correct, a result that could only have been obtained if both the relative time scale and radiometric dating methods were correct. The abundance and variety of fossils in Phanerozoic rocks have allowed geologists to decipher in considerable detail the past 600 million years or so of the Earth’s history. In Precambrian rocks, however, fossils are rare; thus, the geologic record of this important part of the Earth’s history has been especially difficult to decipher. Nonetheless, stratigraphy and radiometric dating of Precambrian rocks have clearly demonstrated that the history of the Earth extends billions of years into the past.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrymp ... h.html#h27

Interbane · Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:05 pm

That's gotta be way older than America.

Chris OConnor · Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:39 pm

What the heck is wrong with you guys today? LOL

johnson1010 · Thu Oct 14, 2010 3:56 pm

Wait....What?

What do you mean "Older than America?"

What have you been reading?

Everybody knows Jesus rode out of the sky on a triceratops with golden, flaming hooves and drove the stars and stripes into the earth, simultaneously creating the earth, The United States of America, and all the light from every galaxy in mid-flight to make it look like it was very far away.

then he turned the triceratops into a fossil skeleton to fool scientists into not believing him.

geo · Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:49 pm


	johnson1010 wrote: Wait....What? What do you mean "Older than America?" What have you been reading? Everybody knows Jesus rode out of the sky on a triceratops with golden, flaming hooves and drove the stars and stripes into the earth, simultaneously creating the earth, The United States of America, and all the light from every galaxy in mid-flight to make it look like it was very far away. then he turned the triceratops into a fossil skeleton to fool scientists into not believing him.

Whoa, that's some weird shit. I guess it could happen.

Interbane · Thu Oct 14, 2010 7:07 pm


	Quote: Wait....What? What do you mean "Older than America?" What have you been reading? Everybody knows Jesus rode out of the sky on a triceratops with golden, flaming hooves and drove the stars and stripes into the earth, simultaneously creating the earth, The United States of America, and all the light from every galaxy in mid-flight to make it look like it was very far away. then he turned the triceratops into a fossil skeleton to fool scientists into not believing him.

Oh. I didn't know that was how it happened. Hey geo, I bet I can believe him with more conviction than you can!

geo · Thu Oct 14, 2010 8:55 pm

Interbane wrote:


	Quote: Wait....What? What do you mean "Older than America?" What have you been reading? Everybody knows Jesus rode out of the sky on a triceratops with golden, flaming hooves and drove the stars and stripes into the earth, simultaneously creating the earth, The United States of America, and all the light from every galaxy in mid-flight to make it look like it was very far away. then he turned the triceratops into a fossil skeleton to fool scientists into not believing him.

Oh. I didn't know that was how it happened. Hey geo, I bet I can believe him with more conviction than you can!

I said it could happen, dude. Anyway, it's not a contest. Or is it?

Azrael · Thu Oct 14, 2010 9:38 pm


	geo wrote: So, like, the earth is pretty old, right?

The earth is like ancient! But then agian if you ask these YEC people its only 6000 years old! :lol:

johnson1010 · Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:13 am

"How old are you now, Terra?"

"THIS MANY!"

geo · Sun Dec 12, 2010 10:54 am

Another thing that shows the earth is OLD! Sedimentary rock.

Also Pangaea.


	Quote: Fossil evidence for Pangaea includes the presence of similar and identical species on continents that are now great distances apart. For example, fossils of the therapsid Lystrosaurus have been found in South Africa, India and Australia, alongside members of the Glossopteris flora, whose distribution would have ranged from the polar circle to the equator if the continents had been in their present position; similarly, the freshwater reptile Mesosaurus has only been found in localized regions of the coasts of Brazil and West Africa.[8] Additional evidence for Pangaea is found in the geology of adjacent continents, including matching geological trends between the eastern coast of South America and the western coast of Africa. The polar ice cap of the Carboniferous Period covered the southern end of Pangaea. Glacial deposits, specifically till, of the same age and structure are found on many separate continents which would have been together in the continent of Pangaea.[9] Paleomagnetic study of apparent polar wandering paths also support the theory of a super-continent. Geologists can determine the movement of continental plates by examining the orientation of magnetic minerals in rocks; when rocks are formed, they take on the magnetic properties of the Earth and indicate in which direction the poles lie relative to the rock. Since the magnetic poles drift about the rotational pole with a period of only a few thousand years, measurements from numerous lavas spanning several thousand years are averaged to give an apparent mean polar position. Samples of sedimentary rock and intrusive igneous rock have magnetic orientations that typically are an average of these "secular variations" in the orientation of Magnetic North because their magnetic fields are not formed in an instant, as is the case in a cooling lava. Magnetic differences between sample groups whose age varies by millions of years is due to a combination of true polar wander and the drifting of continents. The true polar wander component is identical for all samples, and can be removed. This leaves geologists with the portion of this motion that shows continental drift, and can be used to help reconstruct earlier continental positions.[10] The continuity of mountain chains also provide evidence for Pangea. One example of this is the Appalachian Mountains chain which extends from the northeastern United States to the Caledonides of Ireland, Britain, Greenland, and Scandinavia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea

Forum rules

The age of the earth Tweet This Topic

Who is online

Chat Room Always Open!