How old is the Earth?

Views About the Age of the Earth

Old Earth View

Current estimates are between 4.5 and 4.6 billion years. Methods used to find the age of the earth involve radiometric dating of meteorite samples, which would have formed at the same time as the earth.

The oldest rock samples, zirconium oxides, were discovered in situ and then analyzed to an accuracy of a few million years. These samples yield an age of something on the order of 3.9 billion years or so. But the earth "recycles" rock, and we have to look around a bit to find "old" rock. That is why we cannot place the age of the earth with native material.

No matter how old the earth is, it is clear from the geological column that fossils are laid down in sequence, with the most recent fossils above the earliest ones. Any method that established a minimum age for the most recent fossils would at least provide a minimum age for the earth. Early in the 19^th century, Charles Lyell examined the Etna volcano on Sicily and studied the historical records of frequent eruptions. He noticed that each time it erupted, a new layer of lava would be added, causing the mountain to grow at a measurable rate. By knowing the height of the volcano, its approximate rate of growth and the frequency of eruptions, Lyall determined that the volcano must be several hundred thousand years old. At the edge of the volcano, under the first lava flows, he found fossil shells that were virtually identical to the shells of molluscs still found in the Mediterranean Sea. From this, he deduced that the fossils were geologically recent, that a hundred thousand years was geologically short, and that the age of the earth must be immense.

Use the link to the related question on how scientists can date rock using radiometry.

Young Earth View

There is a great deal of scientific evidence which suggests that the earth is nowhere near the ages claimed. Most of this evidence comes through the work of researchers who do not believe in the Bible account of creation. The evidence would allow the Bible chronology with a relatively recent creation around 6000 years ago to be correct.

1. Insufficient sea-floor sediment: At current rates of erosion the amount of sea-floor sediments actually found could accumulate in 12 million years. The oceans are alleged to have existed for 3 billion years.

Creationists contend these sediments could have accumulated rapidly at the flood of Noah c. 5000 years ago.

2. Insufficent Sodium Chloride in the sea: Evolutionary estimates for the age of the earth's oceans are 3 billion years. With current rates of deposition, the salt in the sea could have accumulated in 42-62 million years at todays rate and of course much faster in the Noahic flood.

Note: Calculations done for many other elements produce even younger ages.

3. Decay of the magnetic field of the Earth: This is occurring too rapidly to fit the long-age evolutionary paradigm - the total energy stored having decreased by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1000 years. Creationists have a model explaining this based on sound physics.

4. Tightly bent strata: These stata, thousands of feet thick are tightly bent without cracking. Yet they are meant to have solidified over millions of years and then bent. The creationist explanation is that they formed while still plastic as the entire formation had to be soft when formed to avoid cracking. This would point to the folding having occurred thousands of years and not millions after formation.

5. Fossil Radioactivity: Radiohaloes which have shown evidence of having been squashed indicate that the Jurassic, Triassic and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were formed in a short time-frame - over months, not hundreds of millions of years. This is so since the rings formed by the haloes, which only exist for a short time before they decay were squashed, indicating rapid formation. If the rocks had formed over a long time span the haloes would not have been there.

6. Misplaced Helium: Helium is generated by radioactive elements as they decay. The escape of this Helium into the atmosphere can be measured. If this has been occurring for 5 billion years there should be much more Helium in the atmosphere, instead of the 0.05% that is actually there when compared to the relevant time scale.

7. Insufficient stone-age skeletons: The 100,000 year stone-age of evolutionary anthropologists should have produced many more skeletons - around 4 billion, many more of which should still be around compared to the few thousand found.

8. Recent Agriculture: The archeological evidence shows the stone age people to be as intelligent as modern man and yet it is claimed they existed for 100,000 years before discovering that plants grow from seeds. Creationists would think that it is more likely that man was without agriculture for a much shorter period immediately after the flood.

9. History too short: Stone-age people built huge monuments, did beautiful cave paintings and kept records of lunar phases. It seems unreasonable that they should wait nearly 100,000 years before beginning to make written historical records around 4-5000 BC. A much shorter Biblical time-scale seems to better fit this evidence.

Source: These points are condensed from an article by creationist Dr. Russel Humphreys, in Creation Ex Nihilo 13(3):28-31, June -August 1991.


These are not the only arguments used by creationists, but are a sample of some.

Other arguments include:

Processes thought to take a long period of time can take a short time given the right conditions:

Among the list of such processes includes the following:

Coal and Oil formation.

Opal formation.

Stalactites and Stalagmites in Limestone and other caves.

Diamonds

General Geologic processes are not always slow and gradual but sometimes catastrophic in nature

Some Examples of Rapid Geologic Processes.

The long accepted dogma taught by Charles Lyell that geologic processes always take vast amounts of time is being challenged by recent discoveries in science.

The following are now accepted as having formed catastrophically in a relatively short period of time:

- a major portion of Washington State

- the Snake River Plain of Idaho

- the Altai region of Southern Siberia

- the Black Sea basin

- the upper Mississippi River Valley

- the Hudson River Valley including New York City

- Wyoming's Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

- Owen's River Gorge in California

- the Great Lakes/S. Lawrence River drainage basin

- the English Channel and Dover Straits (the most recently discovered addition to this list)

Scientists who are not creationists of any kind are now openly talking about catastrophism of a major kind in shaping some of these vast areas.

Diamonds, Coal and Opals

These have all been demonstrated as not requiring millions of years to form. They can all be formed quite quickly under the right conditions and in some situations are indistinguishable from the 'real thing'.

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First answer by ID2819335421. Last edit by Dick Harfield. Contributor trust: 221 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 69 [recommend question]