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World's Oldest Rocks Found
Smivs writes "The BBC reports that Earth's most ancient rocks, with an age of 4.28 billion years, have been found on the shore of Hudson Bay, Canada. Writing in Science journal, a team reports finding that a sample of Nuvvuagittuq greenstone is 250 million years older than any rocks known. It may even hold evidence of activity by ancient life forms. If so, it would be the earliest evidence of life on Earth — but co-author Don Francis cautioned that this had not been established. 'The rocks contain a very special chemical signature — one that can only be found in rocks which are very, very old,' he said."
Considering that we don't understand how heavy metals are formed, how is the decay of neodymium any way indicative of earths age?
(Please educate me, I just don't get it.)
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
Why is a story about rocks in Canada tagged "McCain"?
1. The age given is 3.8 to 4.28 billion years (why billion, not giga. Dunno.) The scientist favours the oldest possible date, at a guess because that increases funding,
2. The evidence for life was speculative at best.
As the earth is known to have had liquid water for some time before the 4.28 possible date, this is not startling news. But they are rocks, and there is the possibility of establishing a case that they needed bacteria to create their striations. That's where the interest lies. It seems a bit too soon for life to evolve by too haphazard a route in that time.
Which implies a catalytic life-shaping environment, or an extra-terrestrial source, or of course, intelligent design. I've no objection to the latter, provided it is taught in a scientific manner. I've also no objection to proposing pigs can fly provided the analysis is, if not scientific, then nicely based on engineering.
Wrong, science is never done.
Ok, so the method is based on a stable decay.
But when/how was neodymium formed? These tests assume the formation was when the earth formed. The earth wasn't born with the birth of the elements that made it up. We should find materials *older* than the earth.
If this test is to be conclusive of the age of the earth, than the formation of heavy elements must occur geologically. What is the geological process?
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
Ppppphhhttt. I'm a religion-respecting Christian, and I have no problem believing the rocks are 4.28 billion years old, for the following reasons:
1. God could have created them at that age. For example, if I take my filesystem and slap it onto a CD, preserving the original timestamps... what's the true age (or timestamp) of the files on the CD?
2. If I'm going to try to explain something complex to someone who's incapable of understanding it, I generally break it down into chunks they can understand. So if God's going to explain how he built the universe, and he knows it's beyond our understanding, saying "it was a week's worth of work" might just give us a comparative idea of how much work was involved.
It's rather like the whole evolution versus creationism arguement. I fail to see why both can't be believed in... the Bible says God created man from dirt, if'n I remember correctly. He didn't go about laying all the details out, though. Take all the matter in my body, break it down to its basic molecular compounds, and you've got a pile of mud (dirt and water). Just because the Bible says God made us out of dirt doesn't mean he couldn't have used evolution to build us. Try explaining the concept of evolution to humans still banging rocks together to get fire, and see what you get. Seems to me it'd be simpler to just say "Yep, made you out of dirt."
Of course, I'm tired, it's late at night, and I might not have explained myself well enough. If that's the case, then simply take the above as evidence that some of us Christians are still relatively sane, if a little eccentric ;o)
On how they "teach the controversy".
The way it was handled in my high school science class was simple: a discussion of what "science" meant. Science, after all, is more of a method of discovery by certain rules than a true monolith (such as "science says"). This was then distinguished from spiritual approaches by focusing on physical evidence, falsifiability, etc.
Essentially, the teacher better defined science and distinguished it from religion. She then stated that, as we were in science class, we would learn the scientific take. We were free to believe as we wished - as is the fundamental right of every man, enshrined in the First Amendment and various case law interpreting it - but, regardless of what we believed, we would learn the scientific take in a science class - it only meant sense.
That, to me, is the appropriate way to handle the situation. I particularly liked the way it reminded us more of the scientific method and of the epistemological differences between the hard sciences and other subjects. This planet and its people would benefit a great deal by learning the ability to approach matters in different ways and to even learn to hold two, conflicting ideas in their heads for a moment's time, if not but for the purpose of comparison. We need to trust people to think about things for themselves. Teaching epistemological approaches and focusing on process rather than product is vital to this.
It may even hold evidence of activity by ancient life forms.
Thrintun? Tnuctipun?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
You're likely to see Joe Biden nearby, as he is only 6 years younger than McCain.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I guess you've never heard of the Clergy Letter Project then. It's specific to evolution but a requirement for the theory of evolution is an ancient earth. The text also explicitly supports modern science in general, which would include geology anyway.
Theres evidence on the moon and Mars of massive meteor impacts up to 3.9 billion years ago, or a half billion years after planet formation. This means Earth and Mars may not have been habitable for life until then. Rocks as old 4.28 billion years could disprove or attenuate this meteor event.
Can't the samarium and neodymium stay stuck together from space to earth?
Certainly. That's used routinely to determine the age of meteorites.
But once they land on Earth, they are quite easily identified as meteorites, not rocks that formed inside the Earth. Passage through the atmosphere and and impact with the ground leaves a lot of scars. There's not much chance that a geologist would mistake an embedded chunk of meteorite with locally-formed rocks.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.