Radiometric age of the Earth: 4.55 billion years
Edad de la Tierra por datación radiométrica: 4550 millones de años
- Date
- 1956 · confidence high
- Place
- Caltech, Pasadena, United States
- Credited to
- Clair Patterson; Arthur Holmes (early datings, 1911-1946); Rutherford and Boltwood (principle, 1905-07)
- People
- 👤 Arthur Holmes1890–1965👤 Bertram Boltwood1870–1927👤 Clair Cameron Patterson1922–1995👤 Ernest Rutherford1871–1937
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
Patterson dated meteorites by the lead-lead method and obtained 4550 ± 70 million years, an age the Earth shares with the Solar System. It closed a debate open since Kelvin (who had estimated 20-100 million) and Holmes.
Site of Patterson's laboratory. The samples came from the Canyon Diablo meteorite (Arizona).
What it led to
- Absolute chronology of Earth's history
- Discovery of global lead contamination (Patterson) and the ban on leaded petrol
- High-precision geochronology
Built on
- Geologic time scale1822-1841
- Radioactivity and radium1896–1898
- Uranium-lead radiometric dating1905-1907
- The Age of the Earth: the first radiometric geological time scale (Holmes)1913
- Radioactivity (Becquerel, Curie)
- Holmes's uranium-lead dating
Made possible
- Lead isotope mass spectrometry
- Clean rooms (created by Patterson)