How many days where there in a year in the way distant past?

Question

Like say 10,000 or 1,000,000 years ago. Where the number of days in a year diff then the number we have now and if so why was it this way? I believe it has something to do with the earth having a faster spin in the past but im not sure.

Answer 1

The web is a wonderful place. Smart people put websites together to answer almost any question. By putting your question into the search bar of google, a website (referenced below) with the following information came up:

"Calculation of the earth's rotational speed:

There are at least {2} methods of estimating the rotational speed of the earth as it existed in the distant past; one technique goes at least as far back as 2 billion years ago. This is almost half-way to the time when the earth coalesced according to scientists, but 200,000 times as long as the earth has existed according to young earth creationists:
bullet Fossil bivalves and coral: One well known indicator of an old earth are the daily and yearly growth rings on rugose coral fossils. One group of fossils had been dated as 370 million years old, using radiometric analysis. Analysis of their growth rings indicated that there were about 425 days in each year when the coral was alive. This means that each day was only about 20.6 hours long when the coral was alive. As we go back in time, if we assume that the deceleration rate was constant at its present rate, a day would have shortened by about 11 microseconds each year. This would be 1.1 hours over 370 million years. One would have expected a 23 hour day if the corals were 370 million years old. Thus, we can conclude that the two unrelated methods of estimating the age of the corals gave values that were reasonably close.
bullet Stromatolites: Another indicator is a stomatolite at Zhoukoudian, Beijing, China. It is a sedimentary structure mainly composed of blue-green algae which has formed "bright and dark laminas." They show yearly patterns much like rings in trees. They found that one billion years ago, a year was composed of about 516 days. Each day would have been on the order of 17 hours long. "

Answer 2

OK, like who was there to take these measurements? What makes you believe that the Earth had to significantly spin faster in the past? And where are we going with this line of questioning?

An ice skater spins faster when he or she draws their arms and legs into their axial center of mass. What you suggest is that the Earth has been spreading out rather than coalescing or staying essentially constant. Where did you get this new information?

Maybe some insight into what earthquakes do would help you. The 2004 Indonesian earthquake caused the Earth's rotation to speed up by a whopping 2.7 millionths of a second.

Every year the Earth actually accretes, or gathers in more mass, which slows it down by fractions of a millionth of a second. Now we may be splitting hairs here, but the evidence is in, and the Earth's rotation is, well.....pretty stable over the last million years.

Answer 3

I don't think people existed over a million years ago, if they did I don't think calenders were on their minds =)

We have used different calender systems throughout history however. They were not based on the earths spin, only seasons and the position of the earth and the stars.

I'm quite sure the earth has always spun at the same rate

Answer 4

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Answer 5

It amazes me how many people here don't know that a year is actually one Earth's trip around the sun!
Like the answer about - there were no people back than to take time! AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Or that people didn't exist 1 mil years ago!
COME ON!

Answer 6

different civilizations used different calendars in the past, or none at all, some just went by the seasons. 1 example is the old russian new year starting in june by the worldwide calendar we use today, but the chinese still use their own.

Answer 7

due to tidal locking with the moon, the Earths rotation is slowing over time.

Answer 8

Same as today.