attenuated view of the past (4004bc) james ussher (1581-1656), archbishop of armagh, primate of all...
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Attenuated view of the past (4004BC)
James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in Dublin. Of his many works, his treatise on chronology has proved the most durable. Based on an intricate correlation of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean histories and Holy writ, it was incorporated into an authorized version of the Bible printed in 1701, and thus came to be regarded with almost as much unquestioning reverence as the Bible itself. Having established the first day of creation as Sunday 23 October 4004 BC, by the arguments set forth in the passage below, Ussher calculated the dates of other biblical events, concluding, for example, that Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise on Monday 10 November 4004 BC, and that the ark touched down on Mt Ararat on 5 May 2348 BC `on a Wednesday'.
Time and Western Weltanschauung
ToThe Abyss of Time: Unraveling the
Mystery of the Earth’s Age by Claude C. Albritton
Nominated for the American Book Award in Science in 1981, "The Abyss of Time tackles the primary question of the geological sciences: How old is the Earth? Easily accessible and entertaining to nonscientific readers, it reflects the passionate, lifelong thinking of a distinguished scientist and teacher about the metaphor and reality of time.
Dating Techniques
Absolute
Relative
Dating Techniques
Relative
Seriation
Pollen analysis
Stratigraphy
Fluorine analysisWilliam Smith (1769-1839) observed that the fossils found in a section of sedimentary rock were always in a certain order from the
bottom to the top of the section.
Nicholas Steno’s (1638-1686) Law of Superpositionhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/03/piltdown_man/html/default.stm1911 - first skull fossils found
1912 - discoveries publicised 1915 - Charles Dawson dies 1949 - Piltdown ages queried 1953 - Fossil fakes unmasked
Dating Techniques
Absolute
Varve Analysis
Dendrochronology
Radioactive Carbon (C-14, Carbon 14)
Potassium-Argon (K-Ar)
5,450+/-500BP (TX97)
THE PLEISTOCENE
Evidence for the Ice AgeEvidence for the Ice Age
Louis Agassiz - Swiss/American Naturalist.
Charles Lyell - English Geologist.
Principles of Geology
The Doctrine of Uniformity….the processes we can see shaping the earth today are the same ones that worked in the past.
THE PLEISTOCENEEvidence for the Ice Evidence for the Ice
AgeAge Erratic Boulders.
Moraines.
U-Shaped Mountain Valleys.
Eskers, Drumlins.
Scratched and Polished Bedrock.
Dry Lakes and Drowned River Valleys
THE PLEISTOCENEErratic BoulderErratic Boulder
Along the road to Inspiration Point in Yellowstone National Park there are many erratics. One is this house-sized granite boulder sitting in the pine forest alongside the road. It was plucked from the Beartooth Mountains by a glacier and dropped on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone nearly 80,000 years ago.
Glacial MoraineGlacial Moraine
When a glacier moves down a drainage or a valley, it pushes ahead of itself a large burden of debris, known as glacial till. This debris is completely unsorted by the long term geological processes that usually separate materials and is composed of gravels, dirt and clay, and large and small boulders call glacial erratics.
The maximum advance of a glacier is marked by a terminal moraine. Later stages in the recession of the glacier are marked by end moraines. Lateral moraines may mark the height reached by the glacier up the sides of the glacier's path. These moraines hold more water than the surrounding glacial gravels in their soil and are therefore more heavily timbered than the surrounding area.
In Grand Teton National Park a number of lakes, including Jenny and Jackson Lakes, are formed by glacial moraines.
U-Shaped Mountain U-Shaped Mountain
CanyonsCanyons
The “Beartooth” North of Inspiration Point. The U-Shaped canyon walls indicate a glacier once flowed in this valley and carried debris creating erratic boulders and moraines.
A Drowned River ValleyA Drowned River Valley
Chesapeake Bay on the eastern seaboard of the United States is an excellent example of a drowned river valley. (Image courtesy of NASA.)
Pleistocene Sequence Pleistocene Sequence
Years Ago
10,000 - End of most recent glacial episode.
100,000 - Wurm, Wisconsonian
300,000 - Riss, Illinoian
1 MBP - Elster, Kansan
2 MBP - Tiglian, Jersian
Villafranchian (pre-Pleistocene)
Upper Paleolithic
Lower Paleolithic
Middle Paleolithic