Hi Richard, Thanks very much for the reference and the post!
-Walter ------------------------------------------ www.branchmeteorites.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Kuzma" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, March 26, 2004 9:05 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteorites Used to Calculate Earth's Age > For those who have an interest; I just came across a reference to the key > role meteorites played in determining the final (and currently accepted) > date for calculating the age of the earth. The source is a book titled > "The Man Who Found Time", by: Jack Repcheck (page 204). (The book is > about James Hutton, who advanced the first persuasive argument that the > Earth was older than the then accepted "biblically" calculated age.) > > Briefly quoting the relevant portion of the text - > > "The final breakthrough came in the 1950s, when Claire Patterson, of > Caltech, realized that the only way to get a completely accurate > measurement of common lead decay was to leave the planet.....focus[ed] on > objects ... [that] allowed for more accurate lead decay calculations - > meteorites. As Claire Patterson later related: > > 'Lead in iron meteorites was the kind of lead that was in the solar > system when it was first formed, and ... it was preserved in iron > meteorites without change from uranium decay, because there is no uranium > in iron meteorites....' > > By 1956, Patterson had calculated the age of the earth to be 4.6 billion > years...." > > ______________________________________________ > Meteorite-list mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
