Radiometric dating the earth age

Non-Radiometric Dating of the Age of the Earth: Implications From Fossil Coral Evidence

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Geologists have calculated the age of Earth at 4. But for humans whose life span rarely reaches more than years, how can we be so sure of that ancient date? It turns out the answers are in Earth's rocks. Even the Greeks and Romans realized that layers of sediment in rock signified old age. But it wasn't until the late s -- when Scottish geologist James Hutton, who observed sediments building up on the landscape, set out to show that rocks were time clocks -- that serious scientific interest in geological age began.

Before then, the Bible had provided the only estimate for the age of the world: Hutton's theories were short on evidence at first, but by most scientists concurred that Noah's ark was more allegory than reality as they documented geological layering. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Radioisotope dating has revealed that the age of the Earth is 4. However, as with all searches for truth in science, facts should be supported by multiple lines of evidence. Thus, determining the age of the Earth with alternative techniques could serve to strengthen the conclusions that have been reached with radioisotope dating methods. In this paper, a different approach to solving the problem is proposed. As is known from studies of million year old fossil corals, Earth years were days in duration in distant times because the Earth rotated faster than it does today.

According to calculations based on the fundamental law of rotational motion dynamics involving the moment of inertia of a body, the radius of the ancient Earth million years ago was Let us call this the evolutionary Earth growth constant; it does not take into account the effect of lunar tidal friction. If the present day Earth radius of km is divided by 1.

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One of the key goals has been to not only determine the conditions surrounding the formation of Earth, but also the whole evolutionary sequence of Earth and periodization of all major geological events. Our attention here is focused on the characterization of geological time that encompasses the evolutionary sequence of the material geological environment, or more accurately, the stratigraphic divisions. We call time geological due to specifics regarding the fixation of geological events over billions of years.

Stratigraphic divisions are associated with certain development stages, and then they disappear as they are replaced by other divisions i. Exhaustive knowledge on methodological aspects of geological theories and isotope time sequences has been demonstrated in many works, for example, the work by Wells [ 1 ]. Studies of geological time typically begin with event relation determinations early—late events, ancient—recent events and finish with continuity determinations and positioning on the modern geochronological scale.

These studies may involve both qualitative and quantitative observations.

Age of the Earth - Wikipedia

Qualitative topological treatments of geological time are ultimately connected to quantitative metric treatments. Specifically, topological characteristics are often used for determining the relative age and order of discreet geological events, whereas metric characteristics are used to determine the specific ages and lengths of geological events.

Specific geological ages, which can be referred to as absolute times versus relative times, are determined conventionally by radiometric methods. Such estimates can span from the modern era into the deep geological past and are presented in descending order i.

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The estimates are derived from isotope data, which are converted into radiological ages. These times are determined based on corresponding positions of ground layers, i. Organic fossil remains contained in older geological layers provide important insight into the stratigraphic scale. What relation exists between absolute and relative geological times? For example, are the data complementary or incongruent?

The goal of this work is to find the answer to this question. To begin, let us refer to following facts, whose truths remain undisputable among many researchers: However, some of these numbers are not constants. Growth data from million year old fossil corals indicate that Earth years were days in duration in distant times, i.

This is an unusual conclusion that is difficult to accept using common sense. Let us name the value of 1. The abovementioned results complement, and thus strengthen the truth of, estimates of the absolute age of the Earth that were determined by radiometric methods. Along with this conclusion, the evolutionary Earth growth constant of 1. According to the Kant-Laplace hypothesis, Earth was formed via accretionary processes involving gases and dust masses that remained after the formation of the Sun.

These processes were largely completed over a time span of 10—20 million years. We do not share this point of view given that our research suggests that Earth has been growing gradually by 1. The Earth growth hypothesis suggested here is not new; it was first suggested at the beginning of the twentieth century. Since that time, this hypothesis has been actively developing and has modern supporters.

However, much of this research was treated as obsolete after the development of plate tectonics theory.

The evolutionary Earth growth constant found by us can serve as solid ground to revive the expanding Earth hypothesis. The greatest thinkers of our planet have been fascinated by questions about the origin and evolution of the planetary system and the Sun. Philosopher Kant and mathematician Laplace along with many astronomers and physicists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tackled this problem. Although much understanding has been gained over the past two centuries, conclusive answers to questions pertaining to the origin and evolution of our solar system are still not clear.

In the classical Kant-Laplace hypothesis, angular momentum is the most important characteristic of an isolated mechanical system, which our Sun and its surrounding planets are. The whole process of planetary evolution, from the initial stage of cosmic nebula to the formation of the Sun and the eight planets, was in strict accordance with angular momentum. The rotation consists of the orbital motion of the planets and the axial rotation of the Sun and the planets.

Radiometric dating

Angular momentum of each planet relative to the center of mass almost coinciding with the center of the Sun is defined as the product of the mass of the planet, its speed, and the distance to the center of rotation, e. This rate is given in terms of a " half-life ", or the amount of time it takes half of a mass of that radioactive material to break down into its "decay product". Some radioactive materials have short half-lives; some have long half-lives.

Uranium and thorium have long half-lives, and so persist in Earth's crust, but radioactive elements with short half-lives have generally disappeared. This suggested that it might be possible to measure the age of Earth by determining the relative proportions of radioactive materials in geological samples. In reality, radioactive elements do not always decay into nonradioactive "stable" elements directly, instead, decaying into other radioactive elements that have their own half-lives and so on, until they reach a stable element.

How is Earth's Age Calculated?

These " decay chains ", such as the uranium-radium and thorium series, were known within a few years of the discovery of radioactivity and provided a basis for constructing techniques of radiometric dating. The pioneers of radioactivity were chemist Bertram B. Boltwood and the energetic Rutherford. Boltwood had conducted studies of radioactive materials as a consultant, and when Rutherford lectured at Yale in , [28] Boltwood was inspired to describe the relationships between elements in various decay series.

Late in , Rutherford took the first step toward radiometric dating by suggesting that the alpha particles released by radioactive decay could be trapped in a rocky material as helium atoms. At the time, Rutherford was only guessing at the relationship between alpha particles and helium atoms, but he would prove the connection four years later.

Soddy and Sir William Ramsay had just determined the rate at which radium produces alpha particles, and Rutherford proposed that he could determine the age of a rock sample by measuring its concentration of helium. He dated a rock in his possession to an age of 40 million years by this technique. I came into the room, which was half dark, and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience and realized that I was in trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the Earth, where my views conflicted with his.

To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye, and cock a baleful glance at me! Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said, "Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the Earth, provided no new source was discovered.

That prophetic utterance refers to what we are now considering tonight, radium! Rutherford assumed that the rate of decay of radium as determined by Ramsay and Soddy was accurate, and that helium did not escape from the sample over time. Rutherford's scheme was inaccurate, but it was a useful first step.

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