Earth Sciences 2240F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Unst, Chemical Element, Alpha Decay
15 Oct 2017
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Document Summary
In this course, we deal with natural processes that sometimes lead to catastrophic events past, present and future. Obviously, to know the age of a rock containing evidence of an event (catastrophic or otherwise) is to date that event. Before we can logically discuss the age of events, we need to consider the age of earth itself. In europe, attempts to measure the age of earth began in the middle of the 17th century with the biblical chronology of anglican archbishop james ussher (we mentioned him before). Based on careful study of the bible"s continuous record of births and deaths, ussher placed earth"s creation in the year 4004 b. c. That would mean that earth is barely over 6000 years old. Christian world of western europe, however, ussher"s figure of 4004 b. c. became dogma and, unfortunately, was taken seriously for over 200 years. Other cultures - not surprisingly - placed different dates on the time of origin.
