How old is the Earth?

Answer 1

According to a documentary I watched, a couple of billion years, give or take a millenia..

Answer 2

The overwhelming majority of scientific methods indicate that the Earth is some 4.5 - 4.6 billion years old.

However, there are some who believe the Earth is just thousands of years old at most.

The former is based upon a variety of methods from various scientific disciplines, often independently arrived at, peer-reviewed evidence in which the great majority of the scientific community agree.

The latter is based upon misunderstandings, superstition, fantasy, lack of evidence, deliberate omissions and distortions of science, an inability to accept the advances of human endeavour to understand our universe, and adherence to myths.

I think I may have given away who I think is correct...

Answer 3

About 4-5 billion years old

Answer 4

How old is the Earth, and how do we know?
The generally accepted age for the Earth and the rest of the solar system is about 4.55 billion years (plus or minus about 1%). This value is derived from several different lines of evidence...--->see the link

Answer 5

Most dating methods indicate that the earth is young (thousands not billions of years).

For example:
The recession of the moon.
The amount of salt in the sea.
The decay of the earth's magnetic field.
The exitence of short-lived comets.
Spiral galaxies
Polonium haloes

See here for loads of articles
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3040/

Noone can tell how old the earth is just by looking around today.
However we can tell that the earth is around 6000 years old because we have the eye-witness account of the God who created it!

And the observed evidence is greatly in favour of youth rather than antiquity.


Those that claim the earth is old usually refer to radiometric dating.
It is important to remember that *all* dating methods rely on assumptions.
Radiometic dating is clearly suspect since it dated Mt St Helens rock (just decades old) as millions!
See here for many articles discussing radiometric dating.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3059/

If 90% of mehtods indicate one thing and 10% indicate another then why trust the 10% and discard the 90%?
The reason the 90% are discarded is becuase they conflict with the philosphical, evolutionary ideas that prevail.

Answer 6

Earth and the other planets in the Solar System formed 4.57 billion years ago

Answer 7

Estimates vary from 4.5 to 5 billion years. A book by Isaac Asimov I just read says 4,700,000,000 years.

Answer 8

4.6 billion years old.

Answer 9

he generally accepted age for the Earth and the rest of the solar system is about 4.55 billion years (plus or minus about 1%). This value is derived from several different lines of evidence.

Unfortunately, the age cannot be computed directly from material that is solely from the Earth. There is evidence that energy from the Earth's accumulation caused the surface to be molten. Further, the processes of erosion and crustal recycling have apparently destroyed all of the earliest surface.

The oldest rocks which have been found so far (on the Earth) date to about 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago (by several radiometric dating methods). Some of these rocks are sedimentary, and include minerals which are themselves as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion years. Rocks of this age are relatively rare, however rocks that are at least 3.5 billion years in age have been found on North America, Greenland, Australia, Africa, and Asia.

While these values do not compute an age for the Earth, they do establish a lower limit (the Earth must be at least as old as any formation on it). This lower limit is at least concordant with the independently derived figure of 4.55 billion years for the Earth's actual age.

The most direct means for calculating the Earth's age is a Pb/Pb isochron age, derived from samples of the Earth and meteorites. This involves measurement of three isotopes of lead (Pb-206, Pb-207, and either Pb-208 or Pb-204). A plot is constructed of Pb-206/Pb-204 versus Pb-207/Pb-204.

If the solar system formed from a common pool of matter, which was uniformly distributed in terms of Pb isotope ratios, then the initial plots for all objects from that pool of matter would fall on a single point.

Over time, the amounts of Pb-206 and Pb-207 will change in some samples, as these isotopes are decay end-products of uranium decay (U-238 decays to Pb-206, and U-235 decays to Pb-207). This causes the data points to separate from each other. The higher the uranium-to-lead ratio of a rock, the more the Pb-206/Pb-204 and Pb-207/Pb-204 values will change with time.

If the source of the solar system was also uniformly distributed with respect to uranium isotope ratios, then the data points will always fall on a single line. And from the slope of the line we can compute the amount of time which has passed since the pool of matter became separated into individual objects. See the Isochron Dating FAQ or Faure (1986, chapter 18) for technical detail.

A young-Earther would object to all of the "assumptions" listed above. However, the test for these assumptions is the plot of the data itself. The actual underlying assumption is that, if those requirements have not been met, there is no reason for the data points to fall on a line.

The resulting plot has data points for each of five meteorites that contain varying levels of uranium, a single data point for all meteorites that do not, and one (solid circle) data point for modern terrestrial sediments. It looks like this:

Pb-Pb isochron of terrestrial and meteorite samples.
After Murthy and Patterson (1962) and York and Farquhar (1972) .
Scanned from Dalrymple (1986) with permission. Pb/Pb Isochron

Most of the other measurements for the age of the Earth rest upon calculating an age for the solar system by dating objects which are expected to have formed with the planets but are not geologically active (and therefore cannot erase evidence of their formation), such as meteorites. Below is a table of radiometric ages derived from groups of meteorites:
Type Number
Dated Method Age (billions
of years)
Chondrites (CM, CV, H, L, LL, E) 13 Sm-Nd 4.21 +/- 0.76
Carbonaceous chondrites 4 Rb-Sr 4.37 +/- 0.34
Chondrites (undisturbed H, LL, E) 38 Rb-Sr 4.50 +/- 0.02
Chondrites (H, L, LL, E) 50 Rb-Sr 4.43 +/- 0.04
H Chondrites (undisturbed) 17 Rb-Sr 4.52 +/- 0.04
H Chondrites 15 Rb-Sr 4.59 +/- 0.06
L Chondrites (relatively undisturbed) 6 Rb-Sr 4.44 +/- 0.12
L Chondrites 5 Rb-Sr 4.38 +/- 0.12
LL Chondrites (undisturbed) 13 Rb-Sr 4.49 +/- 0.02
LL Chondrites 10 Rb-Sr 4.46 +/- 0.06
E Chondrites (undisturbed) 8 Rb-Sr 4.51 +/- 0.04
E Chondrites 8 Rb-Sr 4.44 +/- 0.13
Eucrites (polymict) 23 Rb-Sr 4.53 +/- 0.19
Eucrites 11 Rb-Sr 4.44 +/- 0.30
Eucrites 13 Lu-Hf 4.57 +/- 0.19
Diogenites 5 Rb-Sr 4.45 +/- 0.18
Iron (plus iron from St. Severin) 8 Re-Os 4.57 +/- 0.21

Answer 10

about 4.5 billion years ago.