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 To The 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.

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Page 1: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

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.

Page 2: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

Dating Techniques

Absolute

Relative

Page 3: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

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

Page 4: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

Dating Techniques

Absolute

Varve Analysis

Dendrochronology

Radioactive Carbon (C-14, Carbon 14)

Potassium-Argon (K-Ar)

5,450+/-500BP (TX97)

Page 5: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

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.

Page 6: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

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

Page 7: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

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.

Page 8: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

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.

Page 9: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

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.

Page 10: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

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.)

Page 11: Attenuated view of the past (4004BC) James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, and Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College in

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