The Earth's Age and Geochronology provides an outline of geochronological methods, applications, and interpretations. This book discusses the fossil fission track method of dating. Organized into 12 chapters, this book begins with an overview of an accurate chronometer for measuring time intervals that must contain some sort of mechanism in which it operates at a predictable or known rate. This text then discusses the methodology of dating as well as the importance of long cooling histories. Other chapters consider the application of the experimental method to idealized, undisturbed systems. This book discusses as well the concept that in plutonic environments daughter isotope retention may often not commence until long after crystallization, or the peak of metamorphism. The final chapter deals with the applications of geochronology wherein the effects of selectivity will be particularly evident. This book is a valuable resource for nuclear physicists, astronomers, geologists, cosmologists, geochronologists, experimentalists, and scientists.

A synthesis of all that has been postulated and is known about the age of the Earth

The debate over the age of the Earth has been ongoing for over two thousand years, and has pitted physicists and astronomers against biologists, and religious philosophers against geologists. The Chronologers' Quest tells the fascinating story of our attempts to determine the age of the Earth. This book investigates the many novel methods used in the search for the Earth's age, from James Ussher and John Lightfoot examining biblical chronologies, and from Comte de Buffon and Lord Kelvin determining the length of time for the cooling of the Earth, to the more recent investigations of Arthur Holmes and Clair Patterson into radioactive dating of rocks and meteorites. The Chronologers' Quest is a readable account of the measurement of geological time. It will be of great interest to a wide range of readers, from those with little scientific background to students and scientists in a wide range of the Earth sciences.

Negationism is an irrational but useful tool for manipulation. Almost nobody supports the Flat Earth model or the geocentrism, but some European educational laws still offer a confessional education that treats as real the myth about Adam and Eve. This book recounts the struggle that human mind has maintained, over two millennia, against creationist myths. The journey takes place between cosmogonies, theological dogmas, natural philosophy, Deism and the inevitable secularism of the Age of Enlightenment.