Age of the Earth: Difference between revisions
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The '''age of the [[Earth]]''' is generally agreed by scientists to be 4.54 billion years (4.54*10<sup>2</sup>), plus or minus about 1%.<ref>[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html Talkorigins.org]</ref> This has been deduced through many different lines of study, mainly geological evidence. | The '''age of the [[Earth]]''' is generally agreed by scientists to be 4.54 billion years (4.54*10<sup>2</sup>), plus or minus about 1%.<ref>[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html Talkorigins.org]</ref> This has been deduced through many different lines of study, mainly geological evidence. | ||
In his 1991 book, ''The Age of the Earth'', G. Brent Dalrymple gives two examples for visualizing a time period of 4.54 Ga (billion years):<ref name=dalrymple1991>Dalrymple GB. (1991) ''The Age of the Earth". Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804715690. | [http://books.google.com/books?id=a7S3zaLBrkgC&dq=dalrymple+earth&source=gbs_navlinks_s Google Books preview].</ref> | |||
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<font face="Gill Sans MT">If a piece of string 2.5 cm long (about an inch) represents one year, for example, then a 183-cm length (about 6 feet) is equivalent to the average lifetime of a person living in the United States. A string representing all of recorded human history would be fully a kilometer long, but a piece representing 4.5 billion years would be 114,280 km [71,010 miles] long! | |||
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Four and one-half billion quarters would form a stack nearly 8,000 km [4,971 miles] high. | |||
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Can anyone fully visualize a string that would wrap around the Earth nearly three times, or a stack of quarters that would reach from here through the center of the Earth and halfway to the other side?</font><ref name=dalrymple1991/> | |||
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==Geological evidence== | ==Geological evidence== | ||
Revision as of 20:33, 2 December 2011
The age of the Earth is generally agreed by scientists to be 4.54 billion years (4.54*102), plus or minus about 1%.[1] This has been deduced through many different lines of study, mainly geological evidence.
In his 1991 book, The Age of the Earth, G. Brent Dalrymple gives two examples for visualizing a time period of 4.54 Ga (billion years):[2]
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If a piece of string 2.5 cm long (about an inch) represents one year, for example, then a 183-cm length (about 6 feet) is equivalent to the average lifetime of a person living in the United States. A string representing all of recorded human history would be fully a kilometer long, but a piece representing 4.5 billion years would be 114,280 km [71,010 miles] long!
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Geological evidence
The main geological evidence is found from lead, as there is assumed to be none of the original crust left due to erosion.
References
- ↑ Talkorigins.org
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Dalrymple GB. (1991) The Age of the Earth". Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804715690. | Google Books preview.