Quick Granite Formation

Amphigory writes: "According to an article at Scientific American scientists now think that large granite formations could form in only a few thousands of years instead of the hundreds of thousands or even millions previously thought. This may have some really interesting implications for everything from geology to cosmology to evolution."

Comments

This is a middlin' small discovery.

[Tau Zero]

so basically this is sending geologists back to square one in terms of how the earth's structure was formed.

Not by a long shot. It takes geologists back a couple of orders of magnitude about how long it takes granite intrusions to move into place. It doesn't change anything about how long it takes crystals of a given size to form, nor about how long it's been since different rocks crystallized; if anything, potassium-argon dating (which depends on the decay rate of K-40 into Ar-40 and the fact that molten rocks hold potassium but not argon), uranium-lead dating, and other radiometric methods keep getting more and more solid as the confirming data piles up. If there were something wrong with the dating methods, you'd see more and more evidence of inconsistency as the data accumulated. I've heard nothing to indicate that.
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