The age of the Earth can be accurately determined. Through various methods of relative dating, and absolute radiometric dating, scientists can very precisely determine the age of the Earth. The key to the age of our planet lies not in one evidence, but in the cross-examination of multiple evidences. In this paper, we will explore those evidences and find that the secret of Earth’s age lives in the relationship between them. By putting the pictures of fossils in chronological order in the activity Using Fossils to Tell “Deep Time”, we discovered that fossils can be a valuable tool in relative dating. Due to the principle of horizontal originality, we know that layers of sediment are deposited horizontally; because of this, we can extrapolate that fossils of the same species will …show more content…
The hotpots create islands; and when the tectonic plates move, the island moves with it. This creates an opening above the hotspot, which allows the hotspot to create more islands. The older the islands are, the smaller they get because they have more time to be eroded. Also, the older the islands will be further away from the hotspot because they have been on the tectonic plates longer and therefore have had more time to move. This phenomena shows relative age because we can see the age of the Earth through the size of the islands and the distance they are from the hotspot. In the third activity, we found that mid ocean ridges are the birthing place of tectonic plates. The isochron map showed us that the closer to the ridges, the younger the oceanic floor is. The closer to a continent, the older the rock is. The reason for this is because the mid ocean ridges create crust, and where the oceanic crust meets the continental crust, the crust is destroyed (subduction zone). This shows relative age because the oceanic crust’s age can be seen relative to the mid ocean ridges and the subduction
Many Christians believe that the age of the earth is a side issue, of non doctrinal importance, that one can believe in an old or young universe. The Christian apologist William Lang Craig believes that it hurts Christianity when Christians hold to a young earth position (Craig holds to a local flood as many other Christian apologist and Christian). The reason they give is that it is not scientifically possible, others have posited that it hurts the gospel message. Others have said young earth believers unwittingly damage Christianity 's
Until the early 1900's, scientists used several methods of measurement in their efforts to determine the age of the Earth. They studied sedimentation and erosion, stratification (with fossil evidence), measured the salinity of the oceans, and used thermodynamics to determine loss of heat since the Earth's beginning. Each of these approaches yielded estimates that the Earth was anywhere from 24 to 100 million years old.
Encyclopaedia Britannica also states that it is “proved to be a versatile technique of dating fossils and archaeological specimens from 500 to 50,000 years old” (1998). This method of age determination is dependent upon the decay of nitrogen and radiocarbon (Carbon-14) (Encyclopaediea Britannica, 1998; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2011). Carbon-14 is continually formed in nature by the interaction of neutrons with nitrogen-14 in the Earth’s atmosphere (Encyclopaediea Britannica, 1998; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2011) and all living things exchange the gas carbon-14 with the atmosphere surrounding them. The amount of carbon-14 exchanged into the living organism is perfectly balanced with its surroundings, but when an organism dies, they stop taking in the gas and that equilibrium is damaged. Because Carbon-14 slowly decays at a known rate called its “half-life” in a dead organism, scientists can figure out how long ago it had stopped exchanging carbon with its atmosphere. Thus, its age can be determined by measuring the amount of Carbon-14 in a sample (Hirst, 2017; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2017; Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit Research Laboratory for Archaeology, n.d.; Earthsky, 2017; Cram, 1993). With the utilisation of Radiocarbon Dating, scientists have been able to discover that Lindow
Studies of the age of molten rock in the ocean crust confirm the magnetic data. Molten rock contains radioactive isotopes used to calculate the time of the eruption. Rocks near the Mid- Atlantic Ridge, in addition to current like structures happened to be rather young, only some million years aged or a lesser amount (Trefil & Hazen, 2010). Rocks gathered one after another farthest from the range established them to be in turn older. Up to date evidence on charting the surfaces of oceans, maps of rock magnetism, and data on the age of rock indicate to countless expert that the span of the Atlantic Ocean for all intents and purposes is
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In 1820 another French man named James Fourier took the next step in estimating the Earth’s age. He accounted for the fact that the Earth is still hot in its core and using mathematical techniques that he developed and we still use today for time-varying phenomena, came up with a number too staggering foe him to write down. He did however leave us his equations and it is easy to plug in the same numbers and get the answer that he could not say, which comes out to be 100 million years. (Gribbin, 16)
Before the discovery of radiometric methods to determine the age of the Earth, the first few attempts were off by thousands of millions
For decades, many have marveled at the artifacts uncovered in Northern Africa where Ancient Egypt was once situated. The region is an archaeological gold mine filled with ancient treasures left by people who occupied the area thousands of years ago. While some of the mysteries of this ancient civilization have been solved, other secrets remain elusive. Perhaps one of the most intriguing secrets, the chronology sequence of Ancient Egypt, has baffled many for decades. Prior to the advent of more modern dating techniques such as carbon dating, the only means of acquiring chronology was through the use of relative dating and historical dating techniques (Bahn 1997). In the early part of the 20th century, scientist utilized relative dating methods such as striation and seriation to produce a crude
Tectonic plates, giant masses of land that are moving constantly, create faults, where tectonic plates meet. Scientists have discovered something new and extraordinary at these faults. They found that the chemical compound , methane, a greenhouse gas, is being released through these faults called brittle faults. Methane is moving to less shallow parts of the earth's crust or into the oceans themselves. Although methane is known to be bad for the environment, scientists found out that they can precisely date fault lines by examining the methane in the area. A special study called The Nature Communications in Norway has precisely dated a fault line to 200 million years ago. By using this method of dating, scientists could end up precisely dating
This method is used to determine the exact age of fossils, artifacts and the earth. This involves, examining several strata of the crust of the earth to show the time intervals of one layer of rock to another layer as well as use the layering principle to confirm the series of cultures.
Geologic time shows sediment patterns in different layers of the Earth. Geologic time is separated in three main periods called the Cenozoic Era, the Paleozoic Era, and the Mesozoic Era. These periods are determined based on the fossils found in each layer of sediment. Antarctica and India share many of the same fossils in sediment. This supports the theory of plate tectonics because it shows that at one point India and Antarctica were close enough to share similar living things like plants that later became fossilized.
Earth surface if ever changing. There are earthquakes and volcanoes that happen every year all over the Earth. The theory of plate tectonics helps to explain how these changes happen. Plate tectonics is the scientific theory that describes the movement of Earth’s lithosphere which is the outer crust or Earth’s surface. The Theory of Plate tectonics states that the Earth’s crust is divided into many large and some smaller plates that move horizontal to each other. These plates move across the asthenosphere, which is a more pliable surface compared to the lithosphere (Kious). The theory is relatively new and was developed in the 1950’s and early 60’s. The theory builds off of Alfred Wegners concepts of continental drift.
By testing sediment and recording whether it was deposited under conditions of normal polarity and then measuring successive layers, we can build a time chart. By matching different charts from different areas with similar fossils, a more global correlation can be made.
The addition of a second chronometer such as ZHe bolsters provenance constrains. Though, different locations can have similar ZHe ages within one region, ZHe and ZPb ages cannot be the same unless related to volcanism (Reiners et al., 2005). Therefore, for accurate tectonic interpretations based on volcanic grain exclusions, we implement the use of double chronometry on the same detrital grains, an approach only used in the axial Eastern Cordillera (Saylor et al., 2012b).
Numerous extinct spreading centres are found within the world’s ocean basins and these record instances of spreading cessation or migration that provide valuable insights into the mechanism of heat-loss from the mantle and plate tectonic behaviour. This study presents the first comprehensive review of all reported extinct ridges and investigates their characteristics and regional distribution and frequency of occurrence over the last ~170 Myr as recorded in present-day preserved oceanic crust. The axial morphology, gravity signal and crustal structure of extinct ridges are evaluated by generating across-axis profiles through global datasets (IHO - IOC 2014; Sandwell et al. 2014) for individual ridge segments. Information on the spreading-rates, time of cessation and duration of spreading prior to cessation was collating information from previous studies. The potential geodynamic influences on the lifespan and activity of mid-ocean ridges were investigated by evaluating the relationship of extinct ridges to hotspots at their time of extinction using GPlates (Boyden et al. 2011) and a global reconstruction (Seton et al. 2012).