Age of the Earth

• Early ideas:
• 1644 - Bishop Lightfoot - Earth created on Sept. 17,
3928BC at 9 am.
• 1658 - James Usher, Anglican Bishop of Ireland – earth
created on October 26th, 4004 BC.
• 1750 - Buffon (French) Early Earth would require 75,000
years to cool.
• 1800 - James Hutton - Recognized that the Earth was
created by the same processes that we see in operation
today - "The present is the key to the past" - recognized
the enormity of geologic time.
• 1830 - Sir Charles Lyell - wrote "Principles of Geology"
and coined term "uniformatarianism" to describe the
earlier idea of Hutton concerning the enormous amount
of time recorded in the geologic record.
• 1830-1900 - numerous attempts to
determine the age of the Earth:
• (1) Use the thickness of sediments and
the rate of sediment accumulation to
calculate the time required to produce the
observed sedimentary record - Estimates
from 3 million to 1.5 billion years.
• (2) Use the amount of NaCl in the ocean and the
salt content of rivers flowing into the ocean to
calculate how long it would take to accumulate
all the salt in the sea. John Joly used this
method to calculate an age of 90 million years.
• (3) Lord Kelvin - English physicist - Earth would
require <100 million years to cool; the Suns
energy could only last 20 to 40 million years.
• 1895 - Radioactivity discovered.
• 1906 - first radioactive dates suggested that the
Earth must be billions of years old.
• Modern Age Dates:
• Oldest rocks on Earth = ~3.7 billion years:
West Greenland granite; Minnesota gneiss.
• Oldest minerals on Earth = ~4.1 to 4.2
billion years: zircons in Australian
sedimentary rock.
• Oldest rocks on Moon = ~4.3 billion years.
• Most meteorites = 4.55 billion years.
• Generally accepted age of the Earth = 4.55
billion years.
• Radioactive Dating Methods:
• Decay paths (a = 4He; b = 1 electron; half life =
time for 1/2 of total to decay)
• 238U -> 206Pb + 8a half life = 4.5 billion
• 235U -> 207Pb + 7a half life = 0.71 billion
• 232Th -> 208Pb + 6a half life = 14.1 billion
• 87Rb -> 87Sr + b half life = 47 billion
• 40K + b -> 40Ar half life = 1.3 billion
• 14C -> 14N + b half life = 5,730 years
• Examples:
• Radiocarbon Dating
• 14C is an unstable isotope that forms in the
upper atmosphere from cosmic ray
bombardment on nitrogen molecules.
• Not use to directly date rocks but organic
materials produced by once living organisms.
• Living plants absorbed 14C and 12C during
photosynthesis and animals that ate plants will
also have 14C in their bodies.
• Living plants and animals have ratio of 14C/12C
equal to the atmosphere.
• When plants and animals died they stopped
taking in 14C.
• 14C will then decay back to N.
• 5,730 yrs. after death the 14C/12C is 1/2 that of
the atmosphere;
• 11,460 yrs. after death 1/4 that of the
atmosphere;
• 34,380 yrs. after death 1/64 that of the
atmosphere; etc.
• K-Ar Dating
• If we assume a mineral contained lots of K
and no Ar when it formed (generally a
good assumption since Ar is an inert
element), the K/Ar ratio gives the age.
• But if Ar that was formed escaped this will
give younger age.
• Can give the age of reheating of rocks.
• U-Pb Dating
• If we assume a mineral contained lots of U and
no Pb when it was formed, the Pb/U ratio gives
the age.
• Since there are two isotopes of U and two of Pb,
we can test the date to see if it is accurate.
• A plot of 206Pb /238U vs. 207Pb /235U will fall
on a known curve (called concordia) if the
system has not been disturbed.
• The position on the curve gives the date.
• Rb-Sr Dating

• When a rock crystallizes,

• - some minerals have lots of Rb and little Sr,
• - others have lots of Sr and little Rb, but all have
the same 87Sr/86Sr.
• Since 87Rb decays to 87Sr over time, minerals
with a high Rb/Sr will increase in 87Sr/86Sr over
time much faster than minerals with a low Rb/Sr.
• A plot of 87Sr/86Sr vs. Rb/Sr for minerals from
the same sample will fall on a straight line
(called an isochron) if the system has been
undisturbed since the sample was formed.
• The slope of the line gives the date.
• What Then the Age of the Earth?

• Theoretically we should be able to determine the

age of the Earth by finding and dating the oldest
rock that occurs.
• So far, the oldest rock found and dated has an
age of 3.96 billion years.
• But, is this the age of the Earth?
• Probably not, because rocks exposed at the
Earth's surface are continually being eroded,
weathered, subducted, re-melted and thus, it is
unlikely that the oldest rock will ever be found.
• But, we do have clues about the age of the Earth
from other sources:
• Meteorites
• These are pieces of planetary material that fall from
outer space to the surface of the Earth.
• Most of these meteorites appear to have come from
within our solar system and either represents material
that never condensed to form a planet or was once in a
planet that has since disintegrated.
• The ages of the most primitive meteorites all cluster
around 4.6 billion years.

• Moon Rocks
• The only other planetary body in our solar system that
we have samples of are moon rocks (samples of Mars
rocks have never been returned to Earth).
• The ages obtained on Moon rocks are all within the
range between 4.0 and 4.6 billion years.
• Thus the solar system and the Earth must be at least 4.6
billion years old.
• Why is the Earth looks younger than the moon and
meteorites?
• Earth is geologically active – plate tectonics.
• Has a hot, molten interior.
• Rocks are re-melted and their internal clocks are reset.
• Also, rocks on Earth's surface are acted on by erosion
and weathering. Rocks on Earth surface are not as old
as the Earth, they are "recycled" rock materials
• Rocks broken down into sediments (gravel, sand, silt,
clay).
• Sediment will turn into sedimentary rocks over time.
• Older rocks were buried deeply under younger rocks.