The age of the Earth and the oldest rocks |
| |
Authors: | STEPHEN MOORBATH |
| |
Affiliation: | Stephen Moorbath is Reader in Geology at the University of Oxford. |
| |
Abstract: | The ages of rocks and minerals can be determined by measuring the accumulation of the products of radioactive decay within them. The results provide a time–scale for the Earth and for the major geological events which have shaped the Earth's continental crust since it first started to separate from the mantle at least 3700 million years ago. The Earth itself is about 4600 million years old. |
| |
Keywords: | |
|