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Earth is much younger than previously thought
The Telegraph ^ | July 11, 2010 | Richard Gray

Posted on 07/18/2010 11:53:54 AM PDT by Abin Sur

Researchers have calculated that the planet could have taken far longer to form following the birth of the solar system 4.567 billion years ago than scientists have previously believed.

By comparing chemical isotopes from the Earth's mantle with those from meteorites, geologists at the University of Cambridge claim the planet reached its current size around 4.467 billion years ago.

Scientists have in the past estimated that the Earth's development, a process known as accretion where gas, dust and other material clumped together to form the planet, happened over just 30 million years.

But the new research suggests this process may have taken up to 100 million years – more than three times longer than previous estimates.

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, however, the researchers claim that while the Earth probably grew to 60% of its current size relatively quickly, the process may well have then slowed, taking about 100 million years in all.

(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: earth
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To: earglasses

Neal Adams is one of the all time great comic book artists, a genuine legend. I have heard that he has been captivated by his ‘dark matter’ theories in recent years. Good luck to him.


21 posted on 07/18/2010 12:35:40 PM PDT by Ted Grant
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To: Ted Grant
Neal Adams is one of the all time great comic book artists, a genuine legend.

I'll be at Comic Con in a few days, I may well see him...

22 posted on 07/18/2010 12:51:40 PM PDT by Abin Sur
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To: Abin Sur

I’ve met and seen interviews with Neal Adams many times at conventions in the NY metro area. A great talent.


23 posted on 07/18/2010 12:54:16 PM PDT by Ted Grant
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To: Abin Sur

Sorry, but this is all nonsense.

Read this: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab2/arent-millions-of-years-required

Excerpt:

Geology became established as a science in the middle to late 1700s. While some early geologists viewed the fossil-bearing rock layers as products of the Genesis Flood, one of the common ways in which most early geologists interpreted the earth was to look at present rates and processes and assume these rates and processes had acted over millions of years to produce the rocks they saw. For example, they might observe a river carrying sand to the ocean. They could measure how fast the sand was accumulating in the ocean and then apply these rates to a sandstone, roughly calculating how long it took sandstone to form.

Similar ideas could be applied to rates of erosion to determine how long it might take a canyon to form or a mountain range to be leveled. This type of thinking became known as uniformitarianism (the present is the key to the past) and was promoted by early geologists like James Hutton and Charles Lyell.

These early geologists were very influential in shaping the thinking of later biologists. For example, Charles Darwin, a good friend of Lyell, applied slow and gradual uniformitarian processes to biology and developed the theory of naturalistic evolution, which he published in the Origin of Species in 1859. Together, these early geologists and biologists used uniformitarian theory as an atheistic explanation of the earth’s rocks and biology, adding millions of years to earth history. The earlier biblical ideas of creation, catastrophism, and short ages were put aside in favor of slow and gradual processes and evolution over millions of years.


24 posted on 07/18/2010 1:00:21 PM PDT by USALiberty
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To: ml/nj

pV = nRT doesn’t take into account the phenomenon of gravity.


25 posted on 07/18/2010 1:00:34 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
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To: Abin Sur

Looks like they really don’t know. They’re just guessing.


26 posted on 07/18/2010 1:09:11 PM PDT by Leftism is Mentally Deranged (leftism: uncurable mental deterioration)
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To: USALiberty

I suspect that you read all of that and understood very little of it. One of the techniques that has allowed geologic science to vastly improve the old methods that relied entirely on estimates of sedimentation rates is the use of radioactive isotopes. Rocks can be dated by the decay rate of these isotopes. Science advances in steps through a series of successive approximations, each slightly more accurate than its predecessor. The mechanism that formed the scablands of Eastern Washington is now well understood and was important in understanding the effects of catastrophe in forming the Earth’s landscape. Use of radioactive isotope dating helps to calibrate the other methods.

I am thankful that I do not find my Christian faith to be in conflict with the advance of human knowledge through science. Those of you who do have to leaps through such contortions of logic to get the Creation Story to fit with the physical world as it exists and as it has existed through time. Pity.


27 posted on 07/18/2010 1:30:23 PM PDT by centurion316
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To: James C. Bennett
pV = nRT doesn’t take into account the phenomenon of gravity.

It seems to mostly work, even in the presence of relatively massive gravitational fields.

ML/NJ

28 posted on 07/18/2010 1:54:02 PM PDT by ml/nj
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To: USALiberty
Sorry, but this is all nonsense.

Read this: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab2/arent-millions-of-years-requiredhttp:

Actually, Answers in Genesis is the organization promulgating nonsense. Read this:

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-youngearth.html

Not that there's the slightest chance that you or I will change the other's mind, of course. The whole point of this sort of debate is to try to influence someone who's undecided.

29 posted on 07/18/2010 2:10:37 PM PDT by Abin Sur
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To: centurion316

People who preach uniformitarianism tend to ignore facts that do not support their pet theory. Global warming preachers react the same way. pity.


30 posted on 07/18/2010 2:20:03 PM PDT by Paperpusher
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To: ml/nj

Could you elaborate further?


31 posted on 07/18/2010 2:22:33 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
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To: Kent1957

Uniformitarianism was still mainstream when I was in graduate school. Some of the work that we did in the aftermath of the Big Thompson Canyon flood helped to hasten its demise. I guess some of the old school are still around. But, that’s how science works, isn’t it. An explanation stands until someone can produce enough evidence to show its flaws. I’m glad that we are not stuck with 19th Century geologic theory. And our successors will be glad that they aren’t stuck with our 21st Century notions.


32 posted on 07/18/2010 2:44:43 PM PDT by centurion316
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