Posted on 02/24/2014 7:56:24 AM PST by JoeProBono
A tiny 4.4-billion-year-old crystal has been confirmed as the oldest fragment of Earth's crust. The zircon was found in sandstone in the Jack Hills region of Western Australia. Scientists dated the crystal by studying its uranium and lead atoms. The former decays into the latter very slowly over time and can be used like a clock.
The finding has been reported in the journal Nature Geoscience. Its implication is that Earth had formed a solid crust much sooner after its formation 4.6 billion years ago than was previously thought, and very quickly following the great collision with a Mars-sized body that is thought to have produced the Moon just a few tens of millions of years after that. Before this time, Earth would have been a seething ball of molten magma.
But knowledge that its surface hardened so early raises the tantalising prospect that our world became ready to host life very early in its history. "This confirms our view of how the Earth cooled and became habitable," said lead author Prof John Valley, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US. "We have no evidence that life existed then. We have no evidence that it didn't. But there is no reason why life could not have existed on Earth 4.3 billion years ago," he told the Reuters news agency. Plate tectonics and weathering have ensured that very little of the Earth's early surface remains to be studied.......
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
So examining the science, I can see a number of assumptions that could be wrong.
That's a pretty selective consideration of probability there, IMHO.
That’s my selection and I’m sticking to it.
I expect so.
When the Days Were Shorter
Alaska Science Forum (Article #742) | November 11, 1985 | Larry Gedney
Posted on 10/4/2004 1:31:59 PM by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1234919/posts
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I can’t believe so many folks think the Earth/Universe is only a few thousand years old. I had a relative try to convince me of that once.
Do they NOT believe a star can be a million Light Years away?(such measurements are rather trivial and require no theory) Many are much further away than that!
Lets start doing it with Arithmetic too!
2+2=5 “Because God Says So!”
A professor of geoscience name Valley. Cool!
2+2=5 “Because God Said ‘5’, in a loosely related context.”
Whoops! Earth’s Oldest ‘Diamonds’ Actually Polishing Grit
LiveScience | 1/3/2014 | Becky Oskin
Posted on 1/3/2014 5:26:38 PM by aimhigh
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3108059/posts
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