[meteorite-list] Livermore Lab Physicist Date Lifetime of Solar Nebula at Two Million Years

[star-bits at comcast.net]

<Are the tests really precise enough now that a two-million year age difference in a 4.56x billion year old sample is concidered accurate?  What is the error bar with the testing used?>

    The answer is yes, but it doesn't come from a single test.  Using extinct isotopes that only lasted the first few million years of the solar system it is possible to distinguish such short time scales accurately.   However it requires a different test with longer lasting isotopes, such as uranium-lead, to pin the date back to 4.567 billion years and this test is less accurate for short time scales. 
    The idea is not to have an exact date something happened, but to have defined relationships, A happened before B and by this amount.    

--
Eric Olson
ELKK Meteorites
http://www.star-bits.com


> On Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:12:22 -0700 (PDT), Ron Baalke 
> <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
> 
> >CAIs were formed in an oxygen-rich environment and date to 4.567 billion
> >years old, while chondrules were formed in an oxygen setting much like
> >that on Earth and date to 4.565 billion, or less, years old.
> >
> 
> Are the tests really precise enough now that a two-million year age difference 
> in a 4.56x billion
> year old sample is concidered accurate?  What is the error bar with the testing 
> used?
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