HYDER / F98
II. Evolution Model:
A. Evolution Model Age Predictions:
1. Earth/Moon/Solar System formed about 4.6 Bil years ago.
(E1 p72,73; E4 p159,339; E6 p195,203,655,670; E7 p1370; E13 p243)
2. MWG/Universe formed about 10-20 Bil years ago.
(E1 p71; E4 p530,616,622; E7 p1432)
B. Statements concerning an old age:
E1 - (Evolution & the Myth of Creationism: Tim Berra; Stanford U.,1990)
p.70-71 - "The Big Bang. How & When Dit it all Begin?
"... It is easy to decide where to begin. Cosmologists POSTULATE that the Universe originated in a gigantic explosion called the Big Bang. The Universe began as an infinitely hot point of infinite density, which cooled and diffused as it exploded outward. Science can make no statement about the nature of the Universe prior to that explosion, because the physics of the Big Bang is not yet fully understood. We know that space, time, matter, and energy existed after the Big Bang. Einstein's 1916 theory of general relativity, showing that matter and energy are interchangeable, and that space and time are a continuum, forms part of the framework of the Big Bang theory.
Why do cosmologists think there was a Big Bang? Practically everything we know about the Universe is based on an analysis of electromagnetic radiation such as x-rays, radio waves, light, etc., all of which travel at the speed of light. These data provided the key to the BB theory by showing that the Universe is expanding. In the 1920's the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, while spectroscopically analyzing light from distnt galaxies, observed that the light from objects apparently moving away from the observer shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. Light from objects seemingly moving toward the observer underwent a compression in wave length toward the blue end. ... Further observations showed that most galaxies appear to be receding at great speed, and that only a very few nearby galaxies show blue shifts. Everything is receding from everything else like spots painted on the surface of an inflating ballon; but there is no center of expansion. Hubble eventually demonstrated that the extent of the red shift shown by a galaxy is directly proportional to the galaxy's distance from us. Calculations based on the rate at which the stars seem to be receding from each other, and allowing for acceleration due to gravity, indicate that the BB occurred sometime between 10 & 20 billion years age. Recent studies of star spectra support an age of around 11-12 billion years. Most cosmologists favor a figure of around 12 to 15 billion.
In 1964 2 astronomers, Arno Penzias & Robert Wilson, working at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, detected cosmic microwave background radiation by using signals reflected from the Echo satellites. Cosmologists agree that this radiation is the primeval light and heat from the Big Bang itself. Their research was honored with a Nobel Prize in 1978.
The big question in cosmology today is whether the Universe will continue to expand forever, or whether it will begin to contract and collapse into the infinite density from which it originated. The answer depends on how much matter exists in the Universe. If the total amount of matter left over from the Big Bang exceeds a certain critical mass, gravitational forces will eventually bring about a collapse. If the matter in the Universe equals or is less than the critical mass, the Universe will expand forever. The calculations of the total amount of matter in the Universe are maddeningly near the border of the critical amount. The answer continues to elude us.
p.72 - "The Early Earth - After the BB, matter aggregated into glowing masses (stars) that clustered together via mutual gravitational attraction into assemblages of stars (galaxies) scattered across space. Our own island of stars is the Milky Way Galaxy. It is made up of some 100 trillion stars scattered across a disk roughly 100,000 light-years in diameter (it takes light 100,000 years to travel across the Milky Way). The disk of stars is slightly over 2,000 light-years thick. Nearly all the stars we see with the unaided eye are in the Milky Way.
Eventually, our rather ordinary solar system formed in the Milky Way Galaxy about 4.5 billion years ago. It condensed out of a cloud of dust created by the Big Bang. One can observe stars forming today in the same manner in the Orion Nebula.
The planets, including Earth, formed out of the aggregated matter from the dust cloud around the Sun.
For eons and eons, water would have existed on Earth only as superheated steam that rose to the upper atmosphere, condensed, and fell as rain, which then became hot vapors again. By 3.8 billion years ago at most, the Earth had cooled sufficiently to allow rock formation, since that is the earliest date reflected by the radiometric dating of Earth rocks.
Moon rocks brought back by Apollo 11 & Apollo 12 proved to be about 4.5 billion years old.
E4 - Astronomy Today, 3rd Ed.; Chaisson; Prentice Hall; 1999
p159 - "Radioactive Dating ... Every radioactive isotope has its own half-life, ... the half-life of uranium-235 is 713 million years, and that of uranium-238 is 4.5 billion years. ... these two types of uranium are particularly important to geologists because their half-lives are comparable to the age of the solar system.
The decay of unstable radioactive nuclei into more stable daughter nuclei provides us with a useful tool for measuring the ages of any rocks we can get our hands on. The first step is to measure the amount of stable nuclei of a given kind (for example, lead-206, which results from the decay of uranium-238). This amount is then compared with the amount of remaining unstable parent nuclei (in this case, U-238) from which the daughter nuclei descended. Knowing the rate (or half-life) at which the disintegration occurs, the age of the rock then follows directly. For example, if half of the parent nuclei of some elecent have decayed, so that the number of daughter nuclei equals the number of parents, the age of the rock must be equal to the half-life of the radioactive nucleus studied. Similarly, if only a quarter of the parent nuclei remain (3 times as many daughters as parents) the rock's age is twice the half-life of that element, etc. In practice, ages can be determined by these means to within an accuracy of a few % points.
The most ancient rocks on Earth are dated at 3.9 billion years old. These rare specimens have been found in Greenland & Labrador.
The radioactive-dating technique rests on the ASSUMPTION that the rock has remained solid while the radioactive decays have been going on. If the rock melts, there is no reason to expect the daughter nuclei to remain in the same locations their parents had occupied, and the whole method fails. Thus, radioactive dating indicates the time that has elapsed since the last time the rock in question solidified. Hence this 3.9 billion year value represents only a portion - a lower limit - of the true age of our planet. It does not measure the duration of Earth's molten existence.
p338-339 - "Any theory of the origin & architecture of our planetary system must adhere to the known facts. We know of 9 outstanding properties of our solar system as a whole. ... summarized as follows:
1. Each planet is relatively isolated in space.
2. The orbits of the planets are nearly circular.
3. The orbits of the planets all lie in nearly the same plane.
4. The direction in which the planets orbit the Sun (counter-clockwise as viewed from above Earth's North Pole) is the same as the direction in which the Sun rotates on its axis.
5. The direction in which most planets rotate on their axis is roughly the same as the direction that the planets rotate ohn their axis.
6. Most of the known moons revolve about their parent planets in the same directioin that the planets rotate on their axes.
7. Our planetary system is highly differentiated.
8. The asteroids are very old and exhibit a range of properties not characteristic of either the inner or the outer planets or their moons.
9. The comets are primitive, icy fragments that do not orbit in the ecliptic plane and reside primarily at large distances from the Sun.
All these observed facts, taken together, strongly suggest a high degree of order within our solar system. The whole system is not a random assortment of objects spinning or orbiting this way or that. Consequently, it hardly seems possible that our solar system could have formed by the slow accumulation of already-made interstellar "planets" casually captured by our Sun over the course of billions of years. The overall architecture of our solar system is too neat, and the ages of its members too uniform, to be the result of random chaotic events. The overall organization points toward a single formation, an ancient but one-time event, 4.6 billion years ago."
p530 - "The Formation of the Milky Way Galaxy ... the birth of our Galaxy, 10-15 billion years ago ..."
p615 - The Age of the Universe. "... within the standard Big Bang model, the effects of gravity have slowed the universe's expansion over time, so ... the universe must have expanded faster in the past than it does today. The assumption of a constant expansion rate therefore leads to an overestimate of the universe's age - the universe is actually younger than the 15 billion years we calculater earlier (page 606).
... a continuing in astronomy. Unless the universe is of quite low density, and
hence closer to 15 billion years old, the
age that we obtain from cosmology is uncomfortably close to the low end
of the 10-12 billion year age range implied by studies of globular clusters
in our own Galaxy (p463 "All the globular clusters in our
Galaxy appear to have formed between about 10 & 12 billion years ago.")
Because and because the density
of the universe appears to be at least relatively close to the critical
value, we are forced to conclude
that there may be a
between these two major areas of astronomy.
If, as observations improve, Hubble's constant turns out to be closer to 50 or 60 km/s/Mpc, and if the upper limit on globular-cluster ages can be reduced, then the two age estimates may be reconciled. Howerer, if Hubble's constant is more like 70 or 80 km/s/Mpc, then the discrepancy may become a serious embarrassment to astronomy."
p616 - "... we note a potentially serious discrepancy in the estimates of the age of the universe ... For Ho = 65 km/s/Mpc, cosmologists calculate that the likely range of cosmic ages is 10-15 billion years, with the upper linit (1/Ho) corresponding to a uniformly expanding universe devoid of matter, and the lower limit (2/3 of this value) to a marginally bound universe. In part because observations seem to indicate a cosmic density of at least a few tenths the critical value, and for theoretical reasons ... a value closer to the lower limit is favored by many cosmologists. Howerer, this estimate may be at odds with the ages of the oldest star clusters in our galaxy, as determined by analyses of the turn-off point for mainsequence stars on the H-R diagram. For example, the age of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae, according to this method, is at least 12 billion years. Hence the paradox at hand: some stars seem to be older than the universe itself." ... in the 1980s. Some observers measured a value for Ho of around 90 km/s/Mpc, implying 1/Ho = 11 billion years. At the same time, stellar evolution theorists maintained that the oldest globular clusters had to be at least 14 billion years old. Again, improved observations have partly alleviated this problem, although it has not yet been completly eliminated. Reanalysis of the abundance of helium in globular clusters, together with a general increase in estimates of their distances, suggest that the ages of these clusters may have been their ages overestimated by almost 20 %, reducing the 14 billion year limit to the 12 billion, quoted earlier. At the same time, a recalibration of the cosmic distance scale has resulted in an increase in galactic distance estimates, a corresponding reduction in Ho, and hence an increase in the cosmological age of the universe.
The value of Ho is still veing vigorously debated at observatories around the world. Some researchers continue to maintain that a high value, perhaps as much as 80 km/s/Mpc, is correct, in which case."
p622 - "Tracing the observed motions of galaxies back in time implies that some 15 billion years ago, the universe consisted of a single that then began to expand rapidly, at the time of the Big bang. ... for Ho = 65 km/s/Mpc, the age of a critical-density universe is about 10 billion years. This age estimate may be in conflict with the ages of globular clusters derived from studies of stellar evolution. If the cluster ages are correct, then the density of the universe must be significantly less than critical, or Hubbles's constant must be less than 65 km/s/Mpc."
"... The cosmic microwave background is isotropic blackbody radiation that fills the entire universe. Its present temperature is about 3 K. The existence of the microwave background is direct evidence that the universe expanded from a hot, dense state. As the universe has expanded, the initially high energy radiation has been redshifted to lower and lower temperatures.
E6 - (Physical Geology; John Wiley & sons; 1987)
p195 - Age of the Planet Earth -
"... the oldest rocks are the great assemblage of metamorphis & igneous kinds from the Archean & Proterozoic Eons, collectively known as Precambrian rocks. Of the many radiometric dates obtained from them, the youngest are around 600 million years, the oldest about 4 billion years.
... Given that some Precambrian rocks are 4 billion years old, the beginning of Planet Earth's history must be still farther back in time.
...strong evidence suggests that the Earth formed at the same time as
the Moon, the other planets, and meteorites. Through various methods of
radiometric dating and,
in particular, the Rb.Sr and U/Pb systems, it has been possible to
determine the ages of meteorites and of Moon dust (brought
back by astronauts) as By inference,
the time of formatioin of the Earth, and indeed of all the other planets
and meteorites in the solar system, is ago.
... The 206Pb/207Pb ration in an iron meteorite is 0.903. Therefore, this must have been the 206Pb/207 Pb ration of the cosmic dust cloud from which meteorites and the planets formed.
...it can be estimated that the 206Pb/207Pb ratio for the whole Earth is presently 1.186. The ratio is slowly changing because the half-lives of 238U & 235U are, respectively, 4.5 Bil & 710 million years. 235U is disappearing faster than 238U. This means that the further back we go in the Earth's history, the smaller must have been the ratio of 238U/235U. It follows then, that the further we go back the smaller must have been the ratio of the daughter products, 206Pb/207Pb. It is possible to calculate that 2 billion years ago the ratio was 1, and that at 4.6 billion years ago it was 0.903, identical with the ratio in iron meteorites. While this is not absolute proof that the Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago, it is very strong evidence in favor of the idea.
p197 - Magnetism & the Polarity Time Scale -
p198 - "... Because the magnetic field is generated by fluid motions in the core, it can vary in strength due to fluctuations in the flow motions. Over hundreds of years it is observed that the intensity of the field can vary greatly - it is getting steadily weaker at the present time - and this is presumably due to turbulence or some other flow disturbance. It is even possible for the magnet field to die down to near zero. When the field is regenerated, as it invariably is, the electric current and hence the magnetic poles may even be reversed. Polarity reversals are changes of the Earth's magnetic field to the opposite polarity. They have left unambiguous records in certain rocks. The length of time it takes for the field to die down and to reverse is geologically short - no more than a few thousand years - so it is possible to use polarity-reversal events as geological timemakers."
p201 - "... Depositional-remanent magnetism has proven to be a very sensitive and important dating technique. When FOSSILS are present, an approximate age can be given to a sedimentary rock. Knowing the approximate age of a sediment, the exact age can be determined from the magnetic reversals."
p202 - "Sediment cores recovered from the deep-sea floor can be dated very accurately using a combinatiion of FOSSILS and magnetic reversals."
p203 - Summary:
1. Decay of radioactive isotopes of various chemical elements is the basis of radiometric dating.
2. Potassium0argon (40K/40Ar) dating can be used both to determine the formation age of a mineral or rock, and the time of later metamorphism.
3. Rubidium-strontium (87Rb/87Sr) and uranium-lead dating techniques are most useful for dating very old rocks.
4. The age of the Earth, determined by uranium-lead dating, is 4.6 billion years.
5. Radiocarbon dating is only effective in relatively young materials (less than 50,000 years).
6. Remanent magnetism and the polarity-reversal time scale are particularly useful for dating oceanic crust, lavas, and young sedimentary rocks.
7. A sedimentary rock layer can only be dated radiometrically by being bracketed between two bodies of igneous rock to which the radiometric method can be applied.
p654 - "... Astronauts brought back 3 kinds of material: (1) a variety of igneous rocks; (2) breccias; & (3) samples of the regolith popularly called Moon dust.
Igneous Rock. The most interesting samples are the igneous rocks; in terms of age and composition, there are 3 different kinds. The first and oldest consists of feldspar-rich rocks such as anorthosite, a variety of igneous rock formed by extreme magmatic differentiation, and consisting largely of calcium-rich plagioclase. Radiometric dates of these oldest rocks, which come from the highlands, indicate they could have been formed as long ago as 4.5 billion years, only 100 million years after the formation of the Moon. The second kind of igneous rock is basalt that contains high concentrations of potassium and phosphorus; this too is 4 billion or more years old. ... The third kind of igneous rock is also basalt, but it is rich not in potassium but in iron and titanium. It has been found only in the maria, and is dated radiometrically at 3.2-3.8 billion yr.
p655 - History of the Moon - "... The story begins about 4.6 billion years ago, by which time the Moon had formed as a solid body. The evidence does not prove exactly how the Moon was formed; ... by 4.6 billion years ago the Moon had accreted to about its present size."
p668 - Origin of the Solar System - "When, in the gas cloud that formed the Solar System, Nuclear burning commenced, the Sun was born. The time was about 6 billion year ago."
p670 - "... The condensation of the Earth and the other planets was completed by 4.6 billion years ago. ... According to the theory, the wind from our Sun, about 4.6 billion years ago, swept the remaining gases of the planetary nebula away into outer space, leaving the terrestrial planets free of atmosphere. ... The next great event in the Earth's history was the appearance of life. How, when, and where it happened is still unknown. It seems to have happened at least 3.5 billion years ago ... Unknown, too, is the reason that life arose on Earth but apparently
E7 - (Physics for Scientist & Engineers; Sanders Pub., 1996, 4 ed)
p1370 - "... the Solar System is approximately 5 E9 (5 billion) years old ..."
p1432 - The Cosmic Connectin - "... The theory of the creation of the Universe - and the experimental evidence that supports it. This theory of cosmology states that the Universe had a beginning and further, that the beginning was so cataclysmic that it is impossible to look back beyond it. ... the Universe erupted from a point-like singularity about 15 to 20 billion years ago. ...
p1433 - "In 1965 Penzial & Wilson of Bell Labs were testing a sensitive microwave receiver and made an amazing discovery. ... perceiving microwave background radiation (at a wavelength of 7.35 cm) representing the leftover glow from the Big Bang. ... fact that the radiation had equal strengths in all directions suggested that the entire universe was the source of this radiation. ... a group at Princeton had predicted the residual radiatin from the Big Bang ... Penzian & Wilson announced that they had already observed an excess microwave background compatible with a 3-K blackbody source. ... subsequent experiments by other groups ... The results confirm that the radiation is that of a black body at 2.9 K. ... Perhaps the most clearcut evidence for the Big Bang theory.
p1438 - "... The background microwave radiation
discovered by Penzias & Wilson strongly suggests that the Universe
started with a "Big Bang" about
15 billion years ago.
The background microwave radiation is equivalent to that of a black body
at 3 K. Various astronomical measurements strongly suggest that the Universe
is expanding. According to Hubble's law, distant galaxies are receding
from the Earth at a speed v = HR where R is the distance from Earth to
the galaxy and H is Hubble's parameter, H = 17xE-3 m/(s.lightyear)
E13 - (Principles of Isotope Geology; Gunter Faure; J. Wiley; 1977)
p1 - The Roots of Isotope Geology - "Bishop Ussher proclaimed in 1650 that the creation of the world took place in the year . ... Prior to about 1750 the official view was that all sedimentary rocks were deposited during the Great Flood that befell Noah and his clan and that all other surface features of the Earth resulted from catastrophic events that occurred intermittently."
The rise of geology as a science is commonly associated with the work of James Hutton in Scotland. He emphasized the importance of very slow but continuously acting process that shape the surface of the Earth. This idea conflicted with Catastrophism and foreshadowed the concept of Uniformitariarism developed by hutton in his book Theory of the Earth, published in 1785. His principal point was that geological processes occuring NOW have shaped the history of the Earth in the past and would continue to do so in the future. ... A new generation of geologists gradually replaced the older generations, and with their passing disappeared the requirement that geological theories must agree with
p2 - "The apparent antiquity of the Earth and the principle of Uniformitarianism were unexpectedly attacked by ... William Thomson ... Lord Kelvin. thomson was Britain's most prominent physicist during the second half of the 19th century ... Between 1862 & 1899 Thomson published a number of papers in which he set a series of limits on the possible age of the Earth ... he narrowed the possible age of the Earth to between 20 & 40 million years ... Kelvin's arguments seemed to be irrefutable ... discovery of radioactivity ... recognized that the disintegration of radioactive elements is an exothermic process. The natural radioactivity of rocks produces heat, so that the Earth is not merely a cooling body as Lord Kelvin had in his calculation. His conclusions regarding the age of the Earth were therefore invalid. ... The lesson to be learned from this episode was expressed in these eloquent words: ' T.C. Chamberlin, 1899."
p7 - "... seemingly excessive length of geologic time indicated by dating of minerals based on radioactivity ... The difficulty arose because dates calculated on the basis of radioactivity were considerably greater than those obtained from rates of erosion, the salt content of the oceans, and the rates of sedimentation. The implied either that sedimentation had been slower in the past than at present or that very large amounts of sediment had been removed by erosion."
p79 - "Ideally, all minerals of an igneous rock should indicate the same date which can then be regarded as the age of the rock. When mineral dates obtained from one rock specimen or from a suite of cogenetic igneous rocks are in agreement, they are said to be "concordant". Unfortunately,
'' of mineral dates is more common than 'concordance.'
p85 - "All of the foregoing discussion is predicated on the that the minerals were isotopically homogenized during thermal metamorphism and that whole-rock samples of the size of conventional hand specimens remained closed. ... if the rocks were chemically altered so that rubidium and/or strontium were either added or lost at any time after their formation, they cannot be dated by the Rb-Sr method."
p243 - Summary - "The isotopic composition of common lead is a mixture of primeval and radiogenic components. According to the holmes-Houtermans model, common leads evolved by decay of uranium and thorium until the leads were removed from their source regions by geological processes and were deposited as galena in lead-bearing ore deposits. The equations derivable from the model require knowledge of the isotopic composition of primeval lead and of the age of the Earth. Both were determined from a study of lead in stone and iron meteorites that have widely differing U/Pb ratios. The estimates of the age of meteorites and the Earth range from 4.5 to 4.6 x E9 years (4.5 to 4.6 Billion). ... However, the validity of such quantitative interpretation is limited by the provision that the ore leads must satisfy a set of specific about their evolutionary histories.
p227/228 - The Holmes-Houtermans Model - "... a very general model for lead evolution in the Earth ... the ASSUMPTIONS on which it is based.
1. Originally the Earth was fluid and homogeneous.
2. At that time uranium, thorium & lead were uniformly distributed.
3. The isotopic composition of this primeval lead was everywhere same.
4. Subsequently the Earth became rigid, and small regional differences arose in the U/Pb ratio.
5. In any given region the U/Pb ration changed only as a result of radioactive decay of uranium to lead.
6. At the time of formation of a common lead mineral, such as galena, the lead was separated from uranium and thorium and its isotopic composition has remained constant since that time.
... It assumes that radiogenic lead is produced by decay of uranium and thorium in the source regions and that the resulting lead (primeval plus radiogenic) is then separated from its parents and incorporated into ore deposits as galena."
p229 - The Age of Meteorites & the Earth - "Meteorites are known to be fragments of larger parent bodies that formed early in the history of the solar system. These parent bodies evolved briefly by partial melting and chemical differentiation and then solidified. During this process, an iron sulfide phase formed, known as troilite (FeS), that contains appreciable concentrations of common lead but is virtually free of uranium and thorium. Therefore, the isotopic composition of lead in troilite has remained very nearly constant since crystallizatiion. It is the least radiogenic lead that is available to us and, for that reason, it is considered to be most nearly representative of the isotopic composition of primeval lead in the earth. Use of troilite lead from meteorites as the primeval lead of the Earth implies the ASSUMPTI0NS that the lead in the solar nebula was isotopically homogeneous while planetary objects were forming within it, that the Earth and the parent bodies of meteorites formed at the same time, and that the establishment of closed U-Pb and Th-Pb systems in the Earth coincided with the crystallization of troilite in the parent bodies of meteorites.
... The age of meteorites was first established by Patterson (1955,1956) on the basis of the isotopic composition of lead in three stone and two iron meteorites. ... The result was T = 4.55 + or - 0.07 x E9 years (4.55 B y).
... The apparent fit of his data to a straight line confirms the ASSUMPTIONS that (1) all of the meteorites were formed at nearly the same time; (2) they have remained closed to uranium and all of its daughters; and (3) initially they contained lead of very nearly the same isotopic composition.
p230 - ... Patterson (1956) evaluated the assumption that the age of the Earth is similar to that of meteorites. If meteorites and the Earth have a common age, and if they initially contained lead of the same isotopic composition, then terrestrial lead of average isotopic composition must lie on the line formed by the meteorites. Patterson (1956) chose lead from recent oceanic sediment because it is a representative sample of terrestrial lead and showed that it fits the the meteorite line within experimental errors. This demonstration supports the conclusion that the age of the Earth is essentially the same as that of meteorites and that the isotopic composition of primeval lead of the Earth can be closely approximated by the lead of meteoritic troilite.