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The age of Earth is estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%).[1][2][3][4] This age may represent the age of Earth 's accretion, or core formation, or of the material from which Earth formed. [2] This dating is based on evidence from radiometric age-dating of meteorite [5] material and is consistent with the ...
The geological history of the Earth follows the major geological events in Earth's past based on the geological time scale, a system of chronological measurement based on the study of the planet's rock layers (stratigraphy). Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula, a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left ...
Principles. The geologic time scale is a way of representing deep time based on events that have occurred throughout Earth's history, a time span of about 4.54 ± 0.05 Ga (4.54 billion years). [5] It chronologically organises strata, and subsequently time, by observing fundamental changes in stratigraphy that correspond to major geological or ...
Scientists estimate that the Solar System is 4.6 billion years old. The oldest known mineral grains on Earth are approximately 4.4 billion years old. [140] Rocks this old are rare, as Earth's surface is constantly being reshaped by erosion, volcanism, and plate tectonics.
Radiometric dating of these rocks shows that the Moon is 4.53 ± 0.01 billion years old, [46] formed at least 30 million years after the Solar System. [47] New evidence suggests the Moon formed even later, 4.48 ± 0.02 Ga, or 70–110 million years after the start of the Solar System. [48]
A variation of this analogy instead compresses Earth's 4.6 billion year-old history into a single day: While the Earth still forms at midnight, and the present day is also represented by midnight, the first life on Earth would appear at 4:00 am, dinosaurs would appear at 10:00 pm, the first flowers 10:30 pm, the first primates 11:30 pm, and ...
The earliest life on Earth arose at least 3.5 billion years ago. [16] [17] [18] Earlier possible evidence of life includes graphite, which may have a biogenic origin, in 3.7-billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in southwestern Greenland [19] and 4.1-billion-year-old zircon grains in Western Australia. [20] [21]
Hadean. Pha. Had. The Hadean (/ heɪˈdiːən, ˈheɪdiən / hay-DEE-ən, HAY-dee-ən) is the first and oldest of the four known geologic eons of Earth 's history, starting with the planet's formation about 4.6 billion years ago [3][4] (estimated 4567.30 ± 0.16 million years ago [1] set by the age of the oldest solid material in the Solar ...