Guess what? New Date for earth

[TheBear]

Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution (Sept 2005)
Origins explores cosmic science's stunning new insights into the formation and evolution of our universe: of the cosmos, of galaxies and galaxy clusters, of stars within galaxies, of planets that orbit those stars, and of different forms of life that take us back to the first three seconds and forward through three billion years of life on Earth to today's search for life on other planets

I told you were making it up.

Someone told me the earth was definitely 4.5 billion years old.

Now 4.5 billion +- 10.5 Billion (error rate)

That is just whack.

You are making it up.

You got it all wrong. The age of the earth, sun, and our solar system, is about 4.5 billion years. The age of the universe is over 10 billion years.

You're going to have to overturn a mountain of physics, red shift, x-ray, microwave, doppler, Hubble's law, and host of other models and methods, for to claim the universe is under 10 billion years old.

 

[Nathan45]

The earth is 4.5 billion years old? That's pretty illogical to say. If the earth were that old, then the mountains would have eroded away by now, and wouldn't exist. Also, the Mississippi Delta accumulates enough mud that if the world were as old as they say, the Delta would be in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

Just sayin'.

To understand this, understand that The earth's "crust" ( outer layer ) "floats" upon a liquid layer of magma ( the mantle ), which is basically an ocean of molten rock.

Now, there are two types of "Crust", oceanic crust, and continental crust, which are very different. Oceanic crust is much denser. Wheras, continental crust is less dense, much thicker, and doesn't have the oceans weighing down on it, so doesn't sink as far into the mantle

If you dump, say, truckloads of rock into the ocean, you're never going to "Fill in" the ocean, because the sand will weigh down the oceanic crust and cause it to sink further, wheras the continental crust will now have less sand, which will cause it to "float" higher on the liquid lake of magma. Imagine a thin towel floating in a swimming pool: If you put something on top of it, you are going to weigh down the towel, and that part of the towel will sink further.

Furthermore, since magma is simply molten rock, if it ever breaks the surface, it quickly cools and becomes part of the crust. Also the deepest crust, if it gets pushed into the mantle by plate tectonics can melt and become part of the magma. So you're never going to run out of land, because you've got magma to replace it. At least not till the inside of the earth cools down.

Furthermore, mountain ranges are caused by the collision of "Plates" ( Google Plate Tectonics ), The plates are large sections of crust, which are constantly twisting and churning on top of the liquid magma, and they colide. Note that the plate tectonics of continental crust is different from oceanic crust (continental crust is lightweight, thicker than the oceanic crust, but not that dense, and lighter weight on average than the magma that is under it, so it doesn't sink into the magma ) Generally, when two plates colide in a way that one overlaps another, a mountain range is formed. For example, the himalayas are caused because the indian plate is pushing HARD against the asian plate, so the indian crust is crashing into asian crust, which creates a mountain range as one piece of crust goes under the other.

 

[Soul Searcher]

I think that a lot of people get the wrong idea about the terms collide, crash and smash when it comes to the plates. These terms not only imply violence but they also imply speed to many people and while there is a tremendous amount of force applied it is like a collision running in super duper slow motion so much so that our lifetime would be like one frame in the show.

 

[mpok1519]

wow.

Twelve said that if the earth were 4.5BYO, that the mountains would have eroded by now....

I'm sorry, but, seriosuly, take a geology class, and mountains might make more sense.

in places where mountains have been eroded away, there are deserts (ie, the Sahara- the sahara's landscape used to be apart of an extensive mountain chain before man's time, but since then they have eroded into sand. So, in a way, a desert is a much better example of mountains eroding away, other than mountains that have not yet done so)

i think people need to take a much longer, thoughtful approach to debate if they say such things as "the mountains should be eroded by now"

 

[EnemyPartyII]

wow.

Twelve said that if the earth were 4.5BYO, that the mountains would have eroded by now....

I'm sorry, but, seriosuly, take a geology class, and mountains might make more sense.

in places where mountains have been eroded away, there are deserts (ie, the Sahara- the sahara's landscape used to be apart of an extensive mountain chain before man's time, but since then they have eroded into sand. So, in a way, a desert is a much better example of mountains eroding away, other than mountains that have not yet done so)

i think people need to take a much longer, thoughtful approach to debate if they say such things as "the mountains should be eroded by now"

and mesas and pedestals are the remnants of the ultra hard mountain cores where the rest has eroded away...

Unless it was the Flood, of course

 

[mpok1519]

its just hard to imagine....we look towards those with strong faith for hope, but....we cant find much besides their faith in what they say....not hope, not wisdom....just, a profession of how strong THEIR faith it.....

 

[Wiccan_Child]

So you are saying that you know that the earth came 10 billion years after what?

When did life begin?

Have you noticed how they forgot about dating and they are now using words like roughly.

You know roughly involves billions of years.

Oh Christ...

1) The universe formed ~12.5 billion years ago.
2) The Earth formed ~ 4.5 billion years ago.
3) Abiogenesis occured ~3.5 billion years ago.
4) Multicellular life evolved ~0.5 billion years ago.

And no scientist worth his salt would ever say the universe is exactly X years old. Each dating method has an associated margin of error, just like all measuring techniques.

OK?

 

[Morcova]

I'm sorry, but, seriosuly, take a geology class, and mountains might make more sense.

You actually don't even need to take a geology class to learn this stuff.

I remember being taught this stuff in the 4th grade in the eighties.

 

[RedAndy]

It's a rehashed version of that old Creationist chestnut, "If the earth were 4.5 billion years old, the continents would have eroded flat by now!" Again, totally ignorant of basic geologic processes - and that's an argument I found in a book by John D. Morris, who allegedly possesses a PhD in geology. Sorry John, but you fail.

 

[FishFace]

It's a rehashed version of that old Creationist chestnut, "If the earth were 4.5 billion years old, the continents would have eroded flat by now!" Again, totally ignorant of basic geologic processes - and that's an argument I found in a book by John D. Morris, who allegedly possesses a PhD in geology. Sorry John, but you fail.

Oddly enough, this is using virtually the same flaw as the "second law of thermodynamics" does. If there were no energy source then the earth would be heading for a high entropy, big homogeneous mush kind of state. Thankfully we have the sun.

 

[Split Rock]

The earth is 4.5 billion years old? That's pretty illogical to say. If the earth were that old, then the mountains would have eroded away by now, and wouldn't exist. Also, the Mississippi Delta accumulates enough mud that if the world were as old as they say, the Delta would be in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

Just sayin'.

Look at the Appalacian mountain chain and how eroded it is. If you want an example of completely eroded mountains, just look at the continental shields. These are regions of metamorphic rock, but are flat. Just what you would expect to see if mountains were eroded away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_(geology)

Plate tectonics is not a law of nature. It is a hypothesis, or as some like to call it: a theory. We have not seen any mountains appear out of nowhere, nor will we. We simply assume that it is true.

We can measure the movement of the plates and the rising of mountains today. The fact that plates exist and move is not disputed today, except by people like yourself who speak from ignorance. The theory of Plate Tectonics explains why there are earthquakes and volcanic activity where they occur and how the plates move, etc.

 

[Naraoia]

Plate tectonics is not a law of nature. It is a hypothesis, or as some like to call it: a theory. We have not seen any mountains appear out of nowhere, nor will we. We simply assume that it is true.

Emphasis mine.

Surtsey.

I suspect it's not the kind of mountain you were thinking of, but it appeared quite suddenly a few decades ago (though certainly not "out of nowhere", but who has ever demanded that mountains do that?)

Besides, the Himalayas are still rising. Measurably.

 

[Nitron]

Hypotheses and theories are two different things.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Besides, the Himalayas are still rising. Measurably.

Really? Wow, cool.

 

[Naraoia]

Really? Wow, cool.

Don't take my word for it, I remember having read it in a book (one of Attenborough's BBC series turned books things, I think) a while ago, and confirmed the memory with the Wikipedia article on the Himalayas (That one says 5 mm/year or something)

 

[Soul Searcher]

There is a show that has been on the one of the discovery channels called the Miracle Planet which gives a good bit of info on these types of things. I would reccomend it to anyone who doesn't know a lot about the planet and is interested in learning more about how the planet was formed and chaged to the way it is today.

There are several other shows that give a lot of info as well mostly on Discovery, The Science Channel and National Geographic Channel.