THE AGE OF THE EARTH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2031, 20 September 1919, Page 1

THE AGE OF THE EARTH.

VARIATION IN ESTIMATES,

The heat produced by radium is becoming of considerable importance in estimating the age of the earth. Discussing the matter at Auckland the other evening, Professor G. Owen stated that radium was widely distributed throughout the earth's crust. One cubic mile of the earth’s crust contained 371 b. of radium. The late Lord Kelvin assumed that the earth was*once in a molten condition, and taking the known values of the thermal conductivity of the. erust, he arrived at the result that a perirod of 10,000,000 years had elapsed-since the earth’s crust solidified. Geologists, however, insisted, from the thickness of various geological strata and other considerations that the earth’s (-rust was from .100,000,000 to 150,000,000 years old. This discrepancy could not be accounted for, but the presence of radium in the earth’s crust enabled us to extend Lord Kelvin’s figure so as to reconcile it with the figures given by geologists. In fact, said the lecturer, calculations of the age of the earth, based upon radio-active phenomena led to the result that the crust of the earth might he 500,000,000 years old. The discrepancy hetAveen (his figure and the figure calculated by geologists was at preheat inexplicable. Biologists, however, hailed with pleasure the higher figure, for they required it to account for the present state of organic evolution.

The lecturer stated that Professor July suspected that the amount of radium in (ho earth was more than enough to keep it from gelling cooler, and that, in conseiiuence there was going on in the interior of the earth an accumulation of heat which might some day hurst its bonds, and converl (lie whole globe into a liery mass. Thus it might he that, in-lead of the universe being, as it were, a Hock slowly running down, its ultimate tale being the -(illness of death, radium, acting as a, rejuvenating force, would start the earth on its long journey of incandescence, cooling, solidification, and original evolution.