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The Puzzle of Martian Meteorites
Alien54 writes "Recent analysis of several new Martian meteorites is confounding planetary scientists. To put it simply, an awful lot of the Martian meteorites are way too young. According to this thi s story found at Space.com, standard theories predict that most meteorites from Mars should be billions of years old. However, almost half of the known rocks from mars are under 200 million years old. These results open up a Pandora's box of questions. The discussions should be interesting."
I think this proves that everything we know about space is potentially false...
-This sig intentionally left blank
"Maybe they landed there later"...
;)
It'll be interesting to see if they can come up with anything better.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Shouldn't that be the Into_the_Silent_Planet department, Hemos?
Maybe I've been wrong about this whole religion thing. Maybe there is a God and he's messing with our minds!
Thats quite a story. It could steer all known practices right out the window. I've always wondered how they can base assumptions of ages, without knowing if their calculations could be err'd in some way. Wouldn't it be cool if Mars had suddenly appeared just a couple of hundred million years ago. How do you explain that? Ok, Im rabmling, and I really dont have anything relevant to say except I can not wait to see how this develops. Im just waiting for some scientists to start backtracking to cover any misconceptions of carbon-dating that they might have. L8tr
A lot of those craters are our testament to NASA's attempt at a Martian lander.
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Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
Until we actually return samples of rock from Mars, I cannot understand how we can say they are of Martian origin. They might not be of the Earth, I'll allow that. I just think calling them "Martian" is bad science.
Graham
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
Isn't Mars the closest planet to the asteroid belt? If so, and assuming that that occasionally an asteroid gets knocked into an eccentric orbit, might this not explain some aspects? Of course, that's dependent on whether there are young rocks in the belt. If there aren't, pardonez mon air chaud. ;)
-TBHiX-
Forgive Babelfish, for it knows not what it translates.
The conclusion of the article says it all; that they need to send a lander to bring back samples from Mars as soon as possible.
IANAEG or CC (Exo-Geologist or Cosmo-Chemist):
I say this because until that happens, how can we be so sure that these rocks actually came from Mars? Yes, the chemistry is similar, to what we THINK Mars' chemistry is, based on our very limited (and no direct) observations, but if the planets, Mars included, formed by accretion of dust particles in space around the early Sun, then it stands to reason that maybe not ALL of the materials of similar Martian chemistry accreted to Mars. There could be any number of asteroids made of similar materials floating out there between Mars and Jupiter, and periodically colliding, getting melted, and sent Earthward. Sure, the stats may be against it, but I don't believe we really know all that much about the smaller residents of the asteroid belt.
I'm not saying that these rocks are not from Mars, but I'm saying that maybe it's time to entertain alternative theories as to these rocks origins, because the data doesn't jibe.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Anyway, maybe Mars is geologically younger than we thought. Maybe this group of rocks is anomalous in some way. I guess we can only determine the difference if we stop pissing around and send somebody to Mars to see for themselves. The Mars Sample Return mission is a start, but it's extremely limited. Another "lucky strike" so to speak.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Best scientific answer to date: It beats the shit outta me.
The scientists are just in denial about the really obvious answer.
The inhabitants of Mars are firing these little rocks at us just to mess with our heads.
"Here Earth-scum! Take a gander at *foom* this one! Just quit bombing us with those damned probes!"
Argh. Waaayyyy too much coffee today....
Well -not being a geologist myself- if memory serves, C-14 dating is *only* really useful for biological structures. I'd assume they are using isotopes of other elements.
j
Those Martian bastards have a rail gun flinging those things at us.
I knew it... rotten Martian-Commie-Bastards....
I doubt it. There are many more isotopes, each with much greater half-lives than c14. Each is valid for a different range of years. For example, from http://www.talkorigins .org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html#howold:
The most direct means for calculating the Earth's age is a Pb/Pb isochron age, derived from samples of the Earth and meteorites. This involves measurement of three isotopes of lead (Pb-206, Pb-207, and either Pb-208 or Pb-204). A plot is constructed of Pb-206/Pb-204 versus Pb-207/Pb-204.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
Obviously the Martians were a race of giant creatures with immense strength and incredibly keen eyesight. Their primary sport was "Hit the Blue Dot", an odd pasttime which consisted of chucking rocks towards the earth. Any that managed to nail it, of course, got all the girls. Unfortunately, most of them were bad aims, as the Martian race obviously died out millions of years ago.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
First you need to sent a probe to mars that
launches a smaller probe to the surface
from about 200mi above the surface. The little probe (launched from 200km) would slam into the
martin surface....
damn it...they already tried that
AdFuel
This is perhaps the best argument yet for pushing ahead aggressively with manned missions to Mars. It shows that we can learn only so much about an object by looking at it with telescopes. Even when that object is extemely close by, all things considered. Satellites and unmanned landings have clearly not given us the information we desire.
If we want to unlock Mars' secrets, we've got to get there ourselves.
We must respect evil, and we must make evil respect us.
why yes, carbon-14 can only be used accurately for that long because of it's short half-life, but there are many other unstable isotopes that have been used to date materials - isotopes with much longer half-lifes. some include:
potassium->argon
argon->argon
rubidium->strontium
etc etc.
these isotopes let you accurately measure the date of materials way beyond that of carbon-14 dating.
I can see it now. "Well, God only made Earth look really old. He didn't spend as much effort making Mars look old. Really, they're both only 6000 years old and this hundred-million years is a facade made to trap the satanic atheists."
(Modified only slightly from an actual IRC quote).
--
Ben Kosse
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Did anybody consider that maybe the Martians have only recently (in geologic time) evolved to the point that they could build machines powerful enough to lob the darned things at us?
It's probably enough fun to keep them pretty busy nowadays - I imagine with Martian weather things could otherwise be a little monotonous.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
that the process of knocking rocks off of Mars into space and their subsequent reentry thru the earth atmosphere would seriously disrupt the ability to date them by the isotope decay methods described. Therefore, a robotic Mars mission to bring samples back is justified. M&M's sold separately.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Had a conversation with my brother about something similar to this. The topic basically was, "The universe isn't as old as scientists believe". The posit: the universe (and all physical actions) are slowing down over time.
To explain: we know the age of X because of carbon dating. Carbon dating assumes that radioactive decay is a constant. What if, in the past, things happened much faster? Light travelled faster, radioactive isotopes decayed faster, etc. And as time went on, the physical properties assumed to be constant slowed down.
I dunno -- I know my VISA bill grows faster in the present than in the past, but VISA physics defies all rational thought. But, it's an interesting idea.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
I think i have finnaly figured out what NASA is up to, a long time ago the indigineous intelligent peoples of mars was bombarding us with meteors, and after 200 million years we are finnaly returning fire with billion dollar satalites and ground survey equipment!
Kick thier martian green ass NASA!
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
I guess those meteorites that landed in my backyard that I originally thought were from Mars until I dated them to 190M years ago in my basement could actually be from Mars.
.sig
Cool.
Not reading
My plan is to pimp before they realize I'm a jackass. Hit 'em hard and fast.
C-14 is only useful for dating PLANT material or animals that eat (directly or indirectly) recent plants.
Anyone who watched Mission to Mars will doubtless realize that these recent meteorites were generated whent he martian emigration fleet blasted off.
I mean, come one. It's so obvious.
Disclaimer: I saw that on a transatlantic flight while suffering jetlag and sleep deprivation. i was bound to get some funny ideas, okay?
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
- Carbon-14: 5730 years
- Uranium-235: 704 million years
- Potassium-40: 1.3 billion years
- Uranium-238: 4.5 billion years
- Thorium-232: 14 billion years
- Rubidium-87: 48.8 billion years
So if some other isotopes are present, they could easily do the dating.Also, how are half-lifes measured to millions of years? We've only known about this stuff for about 100 years...
What distinguishes a rock from Mars from a rock from earth? A chunk of magma congealing underground isn't going to have much interaction with the atmosphere. What else is consistently different on mars from any other solar system body?
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Article: "Einstein Explains Theory of Relativity"
Slashdotter (knows nothing, but states the irrelevent obvious): "When is Einstein going to learn that F = MA??"
Moderator: Ooooohhhh Aaaaahhhhh Mark this as insightful!
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Please see google and learn for yourself.
I think you will find it fascinating.
No matter how much we think we know about dating things, it's still guesswork. Unless you or the person claiming to know the age were there when the object was "created" (really just matter being converted, we don't "create" any matter), you/they can only guess at its age. We can guess fairly accurately at relatively recent things, but we can't even say with full certainty what the C14 level, or any other age determining factor, was 1000 years ago, let alone exponetially higher ages.
:)
We can't guess right all the time, so don't expect all guesses (hypotheses even) to be right, and don't be so surprised when they're wrong.
Damn those guys who built the sets to the Britney Spears video. Leaving their fake Martian rocks all over the planet...
On a more serious note, maybe we've just found the younger rocks, and the older ones are still lying around.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
erm?
Why is your bird decapitated?
<O O>
( \/ )
X X
Thanks
Bruce
The real Bruce Perens posts as Hooha Man. Anyone else is pretending to be Penis Bird Gu
About a year ago I was on campus watching a lecture being given by one of the Profs from the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering department here at the U... (U of A is a big school for space-sorta stuff)
And now, why this is relevant:
There was some speculation that very early/primitive forms of life may have existed on Earth during the time this collision occured. The debris from the collision could very well have contaminated the rest of the solar system with life, including Mars. ALH84001 may just be the ancestor of a hunk of material that came off of earth, made it to mars, then got blown back here. Weird, eh?
By the way, 1998-2000 PROPAGANDA Image Archive CDs are now available. Click the "Enjoy!" link below...and enjoy.
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
keep up the good work
heres a replacment
<O
( \
X
8===D
( \
X
( \
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8===D
http://smoke.rotten.com/bird
I assume they mean carbon-14?
that is beacuse you are an idiot.
When are these people going to learn that you cannot find the age of an object using that method?!
probably about the same time you realize there are other radioactive elements, if that ever happens.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Did you have to break his legs too?
You're in danger of having your Penis Bird License revoked...
<O O>
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X X
Thanks
Bruce
The real Bruce Perens posts as Hooha Man. Anyone else is pretending to be Penis Bird Gu
-Pete
For example, with potassium-argon dating, how do we:
- know that potassium-40's half-life is 1.3 billion years? Even over 10 years, that's a part-per-billion experiment.
- know that there wasn't argon trapped in the rock along with the potassium in the first place?
Some good scientists admit these assumptions up front, for example http://www.icr.org/research/sa/sa-r03.htm clearly says:Two things:
C-14 dating is only for things that LIVED on Earth.
C-14 dating is only for things that lived on EARTH.
somehow that's just not as funny coming from you as it was from Meept.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
True. But by measuring what portion of it decays in 100 years, we can extrapolate the half life.
75% decayed => half life is 50 years
50% decayed => half life is 100 years
25% decayed => half life is 241 years
10% decayed => half life is 658 years
1% decayed => half life is 6897 years
.1% decayed => half life is 69280 years
and so on.
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E_NOSIG
Well, it would appear that I have been 0wn3d :(
Kudos, to you, good sir. Your powers are mighty and your spelling better even than that of the Slashdot editors.
Thank you for showing me the error of my ways.
Alas, the patent system is so fucked up that even the concept of 'Hooha Man' is no longer in the public domain.
I realise now that I was foolish to think that I could get away with using this name. I reckoned without the unstoppable force that is the Anonymous Coward horde. Fair play, the game is up.
<O O>
( \/ )
X X
Thanks
Bruce
The real Bruce Perens posts as Hooha Man. Anyone else is pretending to be Penis Bird Gu
He may be a hooaha and so are you
/--------\/
(__)
(oo)m00!
*o|||
||----||
ooo^^^
A Brief Conversation with NASA's Mars Program.
From the story:
The age of the Martian surface has been calculated by examining the number of craters on Mars, Mittlefehldt explained. The oldest surfaces would have been exposed to meteorite impacts from space for the longest time, and thus would have the most craters on them. Young surfaces would be relatively free of craters.
Using the current understanding of crater density, a maximum of 15 percent of the Martian surface could be as young as 175 million years old, Mittlefehldt said. Even getting that high of a percentage is really stretching the model, he said. It simply doesn't make sense that half the meteorites from Mars and half the big impact events that sent them to Earth just happened to hit the 15 percent of the surface that is young, he said.
This method of determining the surface age of Mars seems to assume that the meteorite strikes occur at consistent intervals. Therefore, the older the surface, the more impact craters. However, what if there was some reason that a surface which is relatively new (say, 175 million years old) has a much higher density of crater impacts for some reason? Here's what I think: There were very high levels of volcanic activity when these meteorites we're finding were formed. Soon after, one or several large impacts caused a great deal of this newly formed rock to be thrown into space. Several bits made it to earth where we can now puzzle over them, but more importantly, most fell back to Mars, causing heavy cratering over most of the surface.
Thus, the surface of Mars has seen recent volcanic activity, but still shows heavy cratering because the same impact that sent the meteorites to us also sent up large rocks that came back down to form many new impact craters; many more than would be normally be formed in that time span.
But, IANAMG (Martian Geologist). Is any one here who is know if this would work?
Carbon will only work for something like 100,000 years. Before the carbon has halflifed to much.
perhaps something else, that man haven't considered. What if the origins of the rocks aren't mars. they say that they are, based around the fact that they have similar properties. But perhaps the properties that they show, are more common than we believe. Maybe we should send a craft to phebos, or demos (doom rulez!) and check what the make up of those rocks are. Perhaps when we took a sample from mars, to test, it happened to be a metorite similar to what we are seeing.
There's a fundamental flaw in our age measuring process???? Could we simply be measuring their ages incorrectly?
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
...this hardly deserves "Insightful". It's pretty content-free. Note the needless repetition of ideas, malapropisms, and use of filler such as "ever-expanding rapid rate".
Read carefully. The poster could have said the same thing in much less space:
I wouldn't accept this from a student, let alone give it anything better than a "D".
DNA just wants to be free...
I have two theories:
1) The dating technique(sp) that they use to date the rocks, which carefully measures how much various unstable isotopes have decayed away, does not take into account interplanetary phenomenon like various cosmic rays and different forms of radiation....
or
2) Mars, 175 to 180 million years ago supported a thriving civilization of technologically advanced peoples. These peoples were unable to stop a large meteor from impacting their planet....The meteor did impact the planet, spewing Mars debri into the solar system and ending life on Mars...
Or maybe I just need some sleep....
Palin...
I'm trying to troll here, resoned response not welcome.
This is easy.
Half life is the average amount of time for half of the atoms in sample of an isotope to decay. Any individual atom in this sample will have a set probability of undergoing decay during a certain period of time.
Say you have a sample with 6.02*10^23 atoms of Uranium 238 (about 238 grams of U238), and you notice that in 30 minutes, you only have 6*10^23 U238 atoms left. This means, you lost 2*10^21 atoms in 30 minutes.
This means you lost about 0.3322259% of your sample in 30 minutes. Decay is exponential. In 30 minutes, (100 - 0.3322259)% of the U238 is left. In another 30 minutes, 0.3322259% of the U238 will be lost, or (100 - 0.3322259)%^2 of the original total will be left.
To compute how long it will be before only 50% of the original total, do this:
30 minutes * ln(0.5) / ln(1 - 0.003322259) = 6240 minutes.
This means that in 6240 minutes, or 104 hours half of the U238 will be converted, meaning that U238 has a half-life of 104 hours. Of course, these figures are fictitious. U238's half life is lots longer than 104 hours or there wouldn't be any left on the planet, but the principle still holds.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I'd laugh at your ignorance, but you're not the only one who's gone off about carbon dating in this thread. Carbon dating is only good for measuring ages of organic materials, on earth, and only for a few tens of thousands of years of age.
Go look up Hubble's constant. Here, I'll even do some of your work for you.
Take a homogenous magma composed of some Sr an Rb. Now let it cool thus forming various minerals such as plagioclase, pyroxene, and olivine.
Now: Rb87 decays to Sr87. Sr86 is stable and is not a by-product of the radioactive decay of another isotope. The number of Sr87 atoms in a mineral is given by
Sr87 = (Sr87)o + Rb87 * ( exp(at) - 1 )
where (Sr87)o = original amount of Sr87 at the time of crystalization, Rb87 = current amount Rb, a=decay constant, t=time since crystalization. Now divide by the amount of Sr86.
Sr87/Sr86 = (Sr87/Sr86)o + Rb87/Sr86 * ( exp(at) - 1 )
If the initial ratio of Sr87/Sr86 is uniform throughout the rock at the time of crystalization (as it turns out, this is a good assumption), then this the above equation is the equation of a straight line where (exp(at)-1) is the slope, and (Sr87/Sr86)o is the y intercept.
Now measure the various isotopic ratios from various minerals in different parts of the rock. The decay rate is known from the results of laboratory measurements. Solve for t.
It'd be fun to go. But you can do almost anything by remote control these days. Just send over the equipment the 'nauts would have used to test the rock, and run it from earth. It saved a lot on weight & cost.
That maybe these rocks are all the result of a large Mars meteor strike 175 million years ago?
The meteor struck, blasted a crapload of molten rock to escape velocity, where it cooled and solidified, resetting this isotope 'clock'.
-josh
How do we know the half-life of $element
Take a kilo of $element (measured to an accuracy of 1 ppm): Given the atomic weight of $element, you know how many atoms of $element you have (to an accuracy of 1 ppm). You know that when $element decays it emits N $particles: so set up a particle counter and count how many $particles are emitted in $time: This give you the number of atoms that decay per unit time for that many atoms. You derive the decay rate of $element from that.
Given that $element1 decays into $element2, how do we know that there wasn't any $element2 in the mix to start with?
In the cases that are used, the decay product of $element1 isn't any old isotope of $element2, but an isotope that is not produced by any other form of decay. Therefor, you know that every atom of $element2<isotope-x> was produced by the decay of an atom of $element1.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I like your explaination of that. It is logical and seems to hold merit. Now, they claim that the rocks came to earth at different times (and spent different amounts of time in space on the way) so they couldn't have come from the same 'initial impact'.
To this I say, there was the initial impact (followed by your explaination above for the multiple craters). Then, there was a great out-pouring of many rocks into space. The earth caught a few of them on their way out from Mars (on their trip 'away' from the sun) and the others circled in various 'shaky orbits'(elliptical) until they fell to other planets, fell to Earth (some on their trip back 'towards' the sun), fell into the sun itself, or even fell back to Mars. Wouldn't that explain the various amounts of time in space, plus the fact that they arrived on Earth at various times?
Or am I missing something obvious that the article didn't mention? My feeling on this is that the 'Martian Geologists' are too close to the situation and are trying to look for the most complex and 'other worldly' type of explaination. Much like computer technicians get frustrated as hell because they can't figure something out (and they fight it and fight it looking at all of these complex possibilities), then some nearly computer illiterate person says, "hey, what about this?" and the techy smacks himself in the head for being a moron.
I say we 'open source' science, and put them (the scietists) on usenet and mailing lists that are easily accessible. Sure, they would get four hundred times as many useless messages as they got good messages, but I think it would be worth it if they got a few 'simple people's' explainations.
Bite my yammer.
When the data don't fit your theory, ignore them.
This is how we got Dark Matter; the universe doesn't have enough observable mass to fit the big bang model. No problem. Why revise the theory when you can invent unobservable "dark matter?" By altering reality, the nice pretty theories stay unharmed.
Velikovsky's ideas may have been closer than anyone would like to imagine. Not that these, and many other data conflicting with the "cloud of gas" model of solar system origin will make anyone think.
Maybe the rocks were made into "volcanic" material when the meterorite hit them, and they are measuring that, instead of the "last vocanic activity" on mars? it would be the age of the meteorite then, not the age when there was volcanic activity. It has been known that some large impacts will melt rock. well, if this is what they are measuring, then it all makes sense. We find newer rocks more often because the older rocks get buried with time in our planets normal cycling.
Stupid people working for Nasa, I tell ya!
"What's this script do? unzip ; touch ; finger ; mount ; gasp ; yes ; umount ; sleep Hint for the answer: not everyth
Everyone be sure and fill your shopping cart while you peruse the pointless assertions.
Great idea! It looks like we may have made a mistake in computing the age of the martian meteorites, so God must have created the heavens and the earth and we are all sinners.
Sigs are awesome huh?
That is only used to date organic compounds. Plus, C-14 dating isn't terribly useful at measuring the geological age of stuff when it's a couple hundred million years old (I forget the exact amount). We use much different dating methods for that.
Now, those methods could be wrong, but no one has been able to disprove carbon dating, or K-dating, or U-dating, or any of the other methods to date minerals.
--
Ben Kosse
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Um, where does it state that the Sun revolves around the Earth or that the Earth is the center of the Universe? I must have been sleeping through Sunday School when they taught that one.
The Borg? I thought it was Unicron's fault.
One theory is that the asteroid belt was itself a planet that was shattered, somehow.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
After reading your various comments, I think you're intentionally misrepresenting yourself (or at least being intentionally vague to hide your motives). Correct me where I'm wrong:
1. You (and probably your brother) are Young Earth Creationalists. You believe that the Earth was created 6000-7000 years ago as a literal reading of Genisis seems to say.
2. You think scientists who say the Earth is older are probably mistaken.
2. You have heard all of these questions you've posed before this "conversation with my brother", if not then that conversation was a long time ago.
3. You've heard most of the answers posted here before as well.
4. Your purpose in posting the original comment was to both spread the Y.E.C. "science" that most scientists have dismissed as wrong and to get people to question conventional science.
Perhaps I am mistaken and it's your brother who'se the Y.E.C., please correct me where I'm wrong.
This sounds like additional support for Dr. Tom Van Flandern's Exploded Planet Hypothesis.
know that potassium-40's half-life is 1.3 billion years? Even over 10 years, that's a part-per-billion experiment.
You know nothing about particle physics do you? Even done the way you seem to imply, it's trivial with a modern mass spectrometer.
know that there wasn't argon trapped in the rock along with the potassium in the first place?
(sigh... creationists keep using the same arguments over... and over... and over... Never anything new.) Ok... One more time.... It probably does contain non-radiogenic argon. The atmosphere certainly does, and the samples get collected and processed in the atmosphere. At least up until the point at which you place the sample in the argon collection vacuum chamber. But here's the key point. Listen carefully... ONLY Ar40 IS THE PRODUCT OF K40 DECAY! That means you can use the Ar36/Ar38 ratio, which is a constant (more reasearch for you to do...) to subtract out any contamination, including any excess Ar40 that was picked up from the atmosphere.
Some good scientists admit these assumptions up front
Ok... I'm not even going to reply to you anymore. "Good Scientists" != icr.org. These are the same fucking idiots that dumped a bunch of goldfish in salt water in an attempt to figure out how fresh water fish survived the great flood. (hint - The goldfish died)
So you go on believing whatever you want about the age of the earth. But don't expect anyone with any serious scientific credential to even talk to you. The age of the earth is no longer even debated in geologic academia. It's 4.55 +- 0.2 billion years.
Temkin
(Formerly an intern at the USGS branch of isotope geology)
umm, audio is not radiation
also, speed of travel is in no way related to either frequency or amplitude for both light and sound
and that's not even close to how a-bombs work
my schools sucks but even I learned this!
Back on topic, myself: I really don't understand how the Martian rocks get to Earth to begin with, but am enjoying watching the theories fly about looking for a place to land. Anyway,<ugh> 'rock on'. </ugh>
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
This is one of the more clue'd in threads I've read so far.
A couple of the questions I want answered are:
1. What about partial resetting of the the isotope clock, either by the ejecting impact, or atmospheric entry to earth. How does the K/Ar dates compare to Rb/Sr, which has a higher temp. threshold. It's really easy to screw up K/Ar dating of samples that have been reheated. Doing the mineral seperations needed for some of the other dating techniques (U/Pb, Rb/Sr, Nd/Sm) is difficult on small sample sizes like these. It also seems to me that any sample that leaves mars and hits earth has sailed through two potential clock resetting events with narrowly defined energy windows. First, it gets hit hard enough to leave mars, but not get immolated. Second, it traverses similar "tranfer orbits" between mars and earth. Third, it hits earth's atmosphere, is big enough to survive entry, but small enough not to vaporize on impact. Now there's probably a wide range of solutions to each of these problems. But I suspect the most common solutions are going to have really similar energies. Translation... Really similar amounts of heating.
2. I'd like to see some more data on the cosmic-ray aging process for space flight. Sounds iffy, errr... interesting... (thinking inverse square law...)
Finally... I think the Mars researchers are spending way too much time studying itty bitty samples that are of very poor quality, and attrocious provenance. We need to go to mars and return a couple hundered pounds of rocks. And a trained geologist needs to collect them. The difference between the samples collected by Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 is like night and day. Not to knock Neil & Buzz... It just wasn't their thing.
I say we 'open source' science, and put them (the scietists) on usenet and mailing lists that are easily accessible.
We're here... But you're asking for teachers, not scientists. Scientists investigate basic knowlege in the pantheon of disciplines. Engineers figure out useful ways of applying that research. Teachers instill knowlege in the ingnorant. Scientists are often terrible teachers.
Temkin (B.S. Geology - hydrogeology, low temp geochemistry, and isotope geology)
Let me postulate a theory:
1. There was life on Mars. One of their largest structures, which only partially survived, was a face.
2. The Martians thought, "The danger from the sky will never hit us," and 200 million years ago they didn't see it coming.
3. The impact was so great, they all perished; so great, in fact, that it blew chunks of the planet into Earth's path.
4. The building blocks of life were contained in ... Nah, that's going too far. ;-)
Nice conspiracy theory, even without 4. This tells me we need to devote more resources to our "eyes."
Thing 1
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I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Funny, yes, but "informative"???
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Ben Kosse
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Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
1. Yes, Genesis is to be read allegorically. That is the hard part about exegeses. Learning what to read literally, and allegorically. //www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/def ense_of_evolution.html
. nz/recreation.html
Scroll down to "The Bible Refutes Creationism" to see the problems if Genesis is to be read literally.
http:
2. The re-creation theory has been around for a while. I thought it was pretty strange argument at first, but it fits the data (Namely the earth is a few billion years old, Genesis has NO mention of ANY dinosaurs, the fight between Michael and Satan with Satan being cast down to earth, etc) and language supports that theory (buy a Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible.)
http:// www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.olivebranch.org
People forget that when this rock hit earth, it may possibly have been traveling AT NEARLY THE SPEED OF LIGHT! Yes, that way it would seem to be far younger that it should be. Sheez. Scientists can be so dumb sometimes... :)
This will probably get shot down by a passing astrophysicist, but anyway:
Could a large meteorite have impacted on Mars circa 200 million years ago and thrown pieces of rock clear of the planet?
I don't know much about the surface of the red planet, but is there a large enough crater to support this?
Alternatively, such a large impact could have made a serious hole in the crust, creating a large volcano. This could have been the origin of Olympus Mons (the monster volcano roughly on Mars' equator).
Some good scientists admit these assumptions up front, for example http://www.icr.org/research/sa/sa-r03.htm clearly says:
This is a troll, right? Or you are a creationist. The above URL is at the Institute for Creation Research, a creationist outfit. They have a vested interest in proving that isotope dating methods are wrong, because they believe the Earth is only ~10000 years old. And that God created it, evolution is a lie, and so on and so forth. As they say on their home page:
The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a Christ focused creation ministry where science and the Bible live in harmony.
These are not "[s]ome good scientists" (Andrew Snelling especially); they are not interested in objective truth and are distorting scientific evidence for their own ends.
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
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Love Always,
Cobalt