Oldest piece of Earth ever discovered is 4.4B years old

[JQPublic1]

I am still skeptical because that "earth piece" might have come from some other place. Meteorites hit the earth all the time. I do know that carbon dating wasn't used to determine the age of the crystal as I assume it was inorganic. SO what method was used... Is it radioactive?

 

[SmedlyButler]

I hope it wasn't the same geologists who erroneously identified germs in what they said was a martian rock a couple of years ago. The shame of it is that modern "scientists" will report anything for a buck and some notoriety. If there is a federal grant in it they will be beating down the doors for a chance to cheat and lie.

Me thinks you are too cynical to rationally appraise the "scientists" you so casually demean. Their reputations and livelihoods are much too fragile to play as fast and loose with data as you describe.

Sure there are scientific charlatans (common in areas such as cold fusion) but in the rough and tumble world of peer review and tenure, fakery, although it does occur, is much rarer than you suggest.

 

[SmedlyButler]

There are no such things as "Scientific conclusions that are a matter of opinion", by definition.

 

[orogenicman]

I am still skeptical because that "earth piece" might have come from some other place. Meteorites hit the earth all the time. I do know that carbon dating wasn't used to determine the age of the crystal as I assume it was inorganic. SO what method was used... Is it radioactive?

4.4 billion-year-old crystal is oldest piece of Earth - CNN.com

The standard method of dating such rocks involves looking at the radioactive decay of uranium atoms to lead. But if the lead has moved within the crystal over time, this could lead to a faulty estimate of age. If lead has migrated away from the area of the rock being tested, that could make the rock appear younger than it is, or older if lead has concentrated itself.

In this new study, researchers used a technique called atom-probe tomography, which allows scientists to image single atoms of lead and determine the isotope ratio.

Scientists found that clumps of lead atoms had formed 1 billion years after the zircon crystallized. These clusters are tiny, about 5 to 10 nanometers in diameter.

All that means that the lead atoms hadn't moved enough to thwart scientist's existing methods of determining the crystal's age, Valley said. They determined that age to be 4.4 billion years old.

"Although incredibly laborious, their analytical technique can be applied to not only additional terrestrial zircons but also to zircons from meteorites and lunar samples, to perhaps tease out a detailed thermal history of magmatism and impacts," Samuel Bowring, professor of geology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in an accompanying article in Nature Geoscience.

 

[Old Rocks]

Whatever the source of the "extraordinary evidence" it was credited to pop-scientist Carl Sagan by the pop-culture media. The fact that "scientists" misuse the word "evidence" is indicative of the problem with the scientific community. There is no such thing as extraordinary evidence. Evidence is either conclusive or subjective. Scientists in the venerable FBI lab were convicted of falsifying evidence a few years ago. All I am saying is that it is healthy to view sensational scientific claims or claims based on opinion rather than evidence with skepticism.

The fact that you claim to have a brain is sensational.

Gotta love these 'Conservatives'. When they are not busy supporting Russia over the interests of the US, they are denying that scientists know anything at all. And claiming superior knowledge through their channeling of the great obese junkie. What a bunch of loser assholes.