Evidence for the Age of the Earth T412

Outline What does the Biblical account say about the age of Earth? Where else can we look for answers? How reliable are these answers? Very Little!

Is the Earth…… Several thousand or hundreds of millions of years old? Interpretations of Genesis suggest that Creation occurred ya Interpretations from science suggest that Earth is 4.55 billion yo ( ,000000ya)

The Earth is not Young! Oldest Living Tree -Tasmanian Huon pine trees are called the world's 'oldest known living organism'. -Various methods estimate the age of the tree to 'more than 10,500 years old' Population growth rates – If the Earth is young and humans started having babies 6000ya –At the time the Israelites entered Canaan, for instance, we get a world human population of 2024! We know the Israelites alone numbered 95,000. Older civilisations! - There are some very old civilisations, i.e. Kerma in Sudan, Africa BC - The oldest granary yet found dates back to 9500 BC and is located in Jordon

The Age of the Earth Prior to the 19th century, generally accepted age of the Earth was based on religious beliefs –~6,000 years for Western culture (Biblical) –Old beyond comprehension (Chinese/Hindu) James Hutton, the “father of geology”, realized observable geologic processes would require vast amounts of time to produce the mountains, valleys, etc., we see on Earth today Charles Lyell popularized Hutton’s work and concepts in his book, Principles of Geology “The present is the key to the past” - sedimentation rates - wind and water erosion

Evidence ~early developments Geology & Geography The Dynamic Earth Why do coastlines fit? Why are things the same? - rock types - marsupial fauna - tree types - fossil species 3. Continental Drift Alfred Wegener Land Bridge

Continental Drift Not accepted until the 1960’s and 1970’s, when ……. sea floor spreading was observed sonar was used to map the ocean past & present magnetism of rocks observed NOTE: Your Grandparents and Parents (maybe?) generation did not have this taught to them in School

Evidence ~early developments Biology Early Intermediate form fossils lend weight to Theories of Evolution

Obtaining the Age of the Universe from Astronomy Extrapolate the current expansion rate of the universe back to the Big Bang –10 to 20 billion years old Star Cluster Evidence ~early developments Big Bang Theory – The Universe was created by a single event that caused a small state to expand to a larger state Best current estimate is 13.4 ± 1.6 billion years Look for the oldest stars based on distance and speed of light - 11 to 18 billion years old

Evidence ~early developments Physics The Age of the Earth William Thompson - "Lord Kelvin" - molten Earth º F - Fourier analysis of heat loss - Earth was 100 million years old Henri Becquerel - discovers decay of Uranium Pierre and Marie Curie - discover decay from new element - Radium

Evidence ~early developments Physics Ernst Rutherford The discovery of radioactivity allows an accurate estimation of the age of the Earth and the results suggest the Earth is very old

Summary 1 Relative ages – placing geologic events in their proper sequence, i.e. geology suggests the Earth is old Absolute dates – define the actual numerical age of a particular geologic event, i.e. physics says the Earth is ????? Estimated ages – the Big Bang theory, i.e. astronomy says the Universe is 14 billion yo

Radioisotope analysis measure the time taken for mass of element in mineral or object to “decay” by half Measures “decay” of elements CARBON 14NITROGEN 12 This period of time is called a half life Jack Hills, Western Australia Zircon Crystal 5730 years

Radioisotope analysis Carbon Dating - Carbon changes to Nitrogen with a half-life of 5730 years Uranium Dating – half-life of 710 million to 4.5 thousand million years. Potassium Dating – half-life of 1.3 thousand million years Rubidium Dating – half-life of 47 thousand million years - can only be used to date younger objects up to 50,000years

How old are the rocks? South Africa billion years North America billion years Greenland billion years Australia – 4.2 by Tasmania billion years

How old are other planets? We don’t know…………but!

How old are other planets? We don’t know…………but! Meteorites aged to 4.6 billion years old Rocks collected from Moon byo

Final Summary Science has shown rocks on Earth, the Moon and from meteorites are not thousands but billions of years old This raises challenging questions about Genesis