Some elements have radioactive versions which decay over time. When these layers harden into sedimentary rock, millions of years of deposits can be preserved.Īnother important way of determining the age of the earth is called radiometric dating. This process creates distinctive layers that can be counted just like tree rings, some going back more than 50,000 years. In the winter when the water freezes, the circulation of the lake slows down and allows the finer particles to settle on the bottom too. The heavier particles settle on the bottom, but many of the finer particles stay in circulation around the lake. During the summer months the lakes are fed by streams that carry a lot of sediment. There are other dating methods that use layers too, like the annual ice layers at the poles of the earth, which have been measured to over 100,000 years in Greenland, and over 700,000 years in Antarctica! These methods allow us to determine information about the past from data that is available today.Īnother method counts “varves” which are found at the bottom of many lakes. And rings from the same years can be correlated among the petrified remains of trees of different ages, providing an unbroken record from the present back to more than 13,000 years ago. If we look at the cross section of a tree today and find 75 rings, this is a window into the past 75 years, including the atmospheric conditions of each year. Most people know that tree rings are a record of growth from year to year. And as we observe these processes and their effects today, we can develop reliable conclusions about the past. Instead God gave us another means to discover this kind of information: he created the natural world through faithful, consistent processes. While the Bible does include a number of genealogies, many conservative Bible scholars believe that these lists are not intended to be a complete method of dating the age of the earth. So how old is the earth? Some people think the Bible says it was created about 6,000 years ago.
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