[meteorite-list] Question about terrestrial age of 4.4 kyr

[Chris Peterson]

> All these terms are unofficial and used for
> convenience, not like the metric terms, like
> meter, decimeter, centimeter, millimeter, etc.,
> that are "official."

mya is also a bit confusing since the SI unit for year is "a"; mya is more 
formally written "Ma ago"; kyr is formally written "ka".

Chris


*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
To: "Shawn Alan" <photophlow at yahoo.com>; 
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 10:27 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Question about terrestrial age of 4.4 kyr


> Hi, Shawn,
>
> The abbreviation "kyr" stands for "kiloyear" or
> units of 1,000 years. 4.4 kyr = 4,4000 years.
> Slightly different, "mya" means "million years
> ago." The term "aeon" or "eon" is often used
> to mean a stretch of one billion years.
>
> All these terms are unofficial and used for
> convenience, not like the metric terms, like
> meter, decimeter, centimeter, millimeter, etc.,
> that are "official."