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Geology B‑class High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Geology, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use geology resource. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.GeologyWikipedia:WikiProject GeologyTemplate:WikiProject GeologyGeology B This article has been rated as B-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

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This article is within the scope of WikiProject Volcanoes, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of volcanoes, volcanology, igneous petrology, and related subjects on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.VolcanoesWikipedia:WikiProject VolcanoesTemplate:WikiProject VolcanoesWikiProject Volcanoes B This article has been rated as B-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

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Images

Images! The page looks pretty dull without any. Surely there are plenty that would be suitable here. Richard001 (talk) 04:44, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree, someone should find a photograph of the earth as it was forming ;) --Lightnin Boltz (talk) 10:25, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

That's just your lack of imagination; there are surely plenty of images that are relevant. I have added 'reqimage', though it remains unclear if this is the appropriate way to make such a request. Richard001 (talk) 07:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Molten Mantle

Re: Statement about molten mantle

The Earth's mantle is solid, apart from some partial melting in the asthenosphere. True over time it exhibits rheological properites similar to those of a fluid- such as convection, but it is at all times quite solid —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dekitchen (talk • contribs) 18:50, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Jeudo-Chrisitan WHAT?

There's no such seperation between Haredi jews and Orthodox jews. Both believe that, to-date, the universe exists for 5768 years. Cycles/lifetime differ, but not between orthodox/haredi, but between individuals, relying on Rabbis stating some facts, All of them say the universe will exist for 6000 years, Most of them (and the most valued ones) state that the universe will go through a transformation and exist forever. Some say it will re-crate itself, again and again untill the 50,000th year where it will cease to exist. (a thousand jubilees) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.139.199.114 (talk) 14:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Citation Needed

Somebody's crapped citation needed's on almost every sentence, a third of which actually needed them, a third is well known, and a third is already covered by the citations in place. Somebody edit this please. 24.252.195.3 (talk) 04:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, we'll just get the person who is maintaining this article. *Knock knock* ... *doesn't expect answer* Richard001 (talk) 07:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Religion

Religious content keeps being edited into this page and removed from this page by certain individuals. I am under the impression that this page is meant to be strictly a scientific discussion involving geology and not intended to incorporate religion/myths (which there is the page Creation Myths for). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.33.134.62 (talk) 18:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Elfguy (talk) 13:30, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

surely using the word "myth" is not WP:NPOV 203.211.90.46 (talk) 10:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The title of the article isn't "Age of the Earth (science)". It's interesting to include religious views of the world on the subject; it provided a nice consolidated place for different religious doctrines' statement of the Earth's age.--Loodog (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

It's true that that isn't the title, but the scope of the article is explicitly scientific.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The word myth doesn't necessarily imply falsehood only storytelling- see mythology.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 22:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Where is scope defined? By the editors largely, clearly it is seen by many that this is within the scope. 203.211.90.46 (talk) 05:29, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The age of the Earth is principally a matter of Geochronology. Creation myths are not directly relevant to this issue as they predominantly deal with 'how', not 'when', the religion in question teaches that the Earth was created (the latter being added as an extra layer through interpretation of the former). I would support a consensus that constrains this article to being about the scientific research, evidence and consensus about the age of the Earth. For one thing, allowing religion in creates all sorts of WP:DUE weight problems -- which religions' viewpoints do we allow in, and who do we allow to speak on their behalf? Hrafn_Stalk 06:26, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

ah, thank you for clearing this up. So now this makes it clear that you wouldn't want to include ages calculated from outside the scope of Geochronology within that article. Yet obviously this article Age of Earth has no such limitations that Geochronology would have. As for the how/when question, the answer to this is easy too. As simply those which do not touch at all upon the when would be excluded. Easy as pie, no troubles there. 203.211.90.46 (talk) 11:18, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

This article does have the same limitations as the geochronology article, as discussed in the WP:UNDUE link provided. You are also welcome to read Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources#Scholarship, in particular Material that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable; this means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals. Until you can produce reliable sources for any material you want to include in this article, there is little point in discussing this any further. Ben (talk) 12:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I am a little unclear on exactly how NPOV policy is to be applied. Isn't labeling a particular world-view of the Age of the Earth as "mythical", while clearly favoring a view based on a scientific worldview distinctly POV? Especially since approximately 45% of Americans believe the age to be under 10k years, how is it determined that the scientific view should be the only one represented on this page as being the "real" age of the Earth, while others are relegated to belief pages? I'm sure ample scholarly references could be found to support the contention that the Bible asserts a young Earth; so that then brings the matter to favoring materialistic science over scriptural revelation: again, apparently NPOV. --Sylvank (talk) 22:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

First off, that poll you refer to doesn't say anything about the age of the Earth, and this isn't an American-centric encyclopedia anyway. Secondly, there is also no physical evidence that suggests a young age for the Earth; instead multiple lines of evidence show it to be roughly 4.3 billion years. And finally, whether the Bible suggests a young earth is debatable even among Christians; in fact most Christians are not young earth creationists. I hope that helps answer your question. Aunt Entropy (talk) 22:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid it doesn't. The significance of the poll is that, at least in the US, roughly equal numbers of people believe in an old and young Earth. I think this qualifies the view under notability. Furthermore, you state there is "no physical evidence". This seems to be POV: there are people who say the evidence supports an old Earth, while others say that evidence supports a young Earth. While more scientists may prefer the former to the latter, my impression, from a previous NPOV discussion, is that it is not up to editors to decide which is "factual", but rather to represent all viewpoints fairly. It's also true that not all Christians are young-Earthers, but a sizable minority are. I would certainly agree the evidence points overwhelmingly to an ancient Earth. But it does so for those who accept methodological naturalism, empiricism, and materialism. Deciding that this view is "correct", whereas those who believe scripture trumps the possibly flawed, possibly agenda-driven (eg. evil atheist conspiracy) scientific interpretation of evidence are "wrong", seems to be a clear display of bias. I would agree that scientifically, the age of the Earth is a fact. But it is also in dispute. What I'm trying to find out, is if relegating WorldView X to "myth", while asserting WorldView Y as the primary and factual information about a subject, is consistent with WP's NPOV policy. Thanks. --Sylvank (talk) 23:15, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I just read Misplaced Pages:Fringe_theories. Would it be reasonable to assume that the young-Earth position qualifies as a fringe theory, and while it may have many adherents, it is overwhelmingly dismissed by mainstream science and academia, thus can be relegated to a secondary article? --Sylvank (talk) 23:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

What's the deal with "our Sun" ?

Why is it important to some to change the Sun to our Sun? Saros136 (talk) 05:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't rightly know. All those "ours" seem glaringly unneeded as there's only one Sun with a capital S. The anon seemed rather obsessed with it, grammatical correctness or some such ... so I left it for awhile. Vsmith (talk) 14:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It's also a clear example of Sol-pov; even though all of Wikimedia's servers are located in the Solar System, we don't want to offend the Alpha Centauris if we can avoid it! --Saforrest (talk) 20:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Although it is not specifically spelled out, I think that "our" may not be following the spirit of Misplaced Pages:MoS#Usage. It also seems unencyclopedic language.—RJH (talk) 23:26, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Could this article link to Earth?

I was reading this article's intro and went to click on Earth... but there is no such link. I was a little shocked. Perhaps there should be a link to that article, here? -Miskaton (talk) 17:30, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I've added two. One in an image caption, and the other is the first instance of the word that isn't part of the bolded article title. Ben (talk) 18:03, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Age of the Earth vs. Age of Earth

The article title is Age of the Earth, yet the first sentence in the article uses the age of Earth. Which is it? The second seems more correct to me, but English teachers have been known to come running at me with a red pen in the past. Either way, we should stick to one or the other. Cheers, Ben (talk) 12:47, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Interesting question. My language instinct tells me both are ok, but I prefer the version with the article. I'd also say: "age of the sun", "age of Mars", "age of the moon", "age of Jupiter", "age of the galaxy", not to mention "the Age of Aquarius". Hmm ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:28, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Earth is one of those where we use the, I believe. Age of the Earth certainly sounds better than Age of Earth. --Narson ~ Talk • 09:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Adjusted accordingly. I suspect it has something to do with proper nouns, and Earth is something of a borderline case there ("the Queen", but "Elizabeth II", "the shrub", but "George Bush"). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:14, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Both usages are perfectly fine. One of the things I've learned teaching English here in Taiwan, and discussing English with other native English speakers from other places, is that there is no consistency with usage of "the". Americans say "in the hospital", but the Australians say "in hospital". To me, the former tallest building in the world is "Taipei 101", but my friends from Texas and Chicago say "the Taipei 101". There's really no pressing reason to move this. Nor is there any reason to push the article language towards one or the other. I usually push for consistency, but in this case the consistency brings no real advantage. I can say that to me "Age of Earth" sounds like it means something similar to "Age of Aquarius", whereas "Age of the Earth" sounds like it's talking about the length of its existence, but that is purely my gut instinct, and should not be used to determine wording, naming, or anything else beyond what I feel like eating. (Speaking of which...)--Aervanath's sock lives in the Orphanage, too 14:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

To gauge usage I quickly googled "Age of Earth" (giving ~1,610,000 hits) and "Age of the Earth" (giving ~263,000 hits). We also have History of Earth, and Earth speaks about Earth, not the Earth, consistently. If the word "the" is a cultural thing in cases like this, as suggested above, then that is fine, but since this is topic is about as global as a topic can get, I'd prefer to stick to the more common usage. Cheers, Ben (talk) 19:11, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind too much either way. But your Google search is not conclusive - more than half of your "age of Earth" results boldly contain "age of the Earth", often in the title. I suspect Google is trying to be smart. Also, I noted false positives like "age of Earth's formation". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

more than half of your "age of Earth" results boldly contain "age of the Earth"

How did you conclude that? As far as I can see it's impossible, since otherwise the second figure would be at least 800,000. I fully expect there to be some overlap (an instance of which is the reason for this discussion), but I made sure Google wasn't being smart since I searched for exact phrases. As for the false positive, no it's not. It could be either "age of the Earth's formation" or "age of Earth's formation". Cheers, Ben (talk) 21:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been more specific. More than half of the "age of Earth" results on the first page contain "Age of the Earth". And Google is smart even if you use quotes. Looking at the first hit (the Talk.origins page, , it does not contain the phrase "age of Earth" at all. Check the cached version, which highlights the phrases, and it will tell you that "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: age of earth". Point taken about the other false positive. But looking at Google Scholar (since this is a scientific topic), the outcome is actually reversed: 6000 vs. 600 --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:25, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that "Age of the Earth" is better English than "Age of Earth", which sounds very wrong to me. I also strongly feel that the article text should match the title. If consensus is to move it, then it can be moved, but either way the phrase should be consistent. Finally, I think that Google searches are a distraction. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 21:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I concur. Age of Earth (dirt?) is ambiguous, whereas Age of the Earth is pretty clearly about the planet.—RJH (talk) 21:34, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Should History of Earth be moved too? Also, if Age of the Earth is better English, can you please explain this to me, since I really don't understand. The age of the Saturn sounds really wrong to me. Ben (talk) 21:42, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I was tought that our planet is called "the Earth", its natural satellite is called "the Moon", and its nearest star is called "the Sun". In my experience, no one would say "This plane could fly around Earth before having to refuel" any more than they would say "I see Moon is bright tonight" or "I was hoping to sunbathe, but Sun went behind the clouds". Other planets, by contrast, have proper names which are never preceded by "the". Of course, as pointed out earlier, non-British English users may have different ideas about the use of the word "the". This is just the British perspective, of course. THESHEFFIELDSTEEL 21:56, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I always thought the preceded Sun and Moon because there exist other suns and moons. In a sense we elevate our sun and moon above all others by calling them the Sun and the Moon. Another example would be the dog, as if some sort of context were already established. This plane could fly around Earth before having to refuel sounds perfectly normal to me, but your Sun and Moon examples I completely agree with. Can I ask then, why are the article titles Earth and Sun? Why does the (the?) Sun article start with The Sun ..., yet the Earth article with Earth ...? And we still have History of Earth too. I'm not trying to be difficult, just thinking out loud now and I would like to get some consistency between these articles. I might even make my old English teachers proud at long last! :) Ben (talk) 22:16, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, for article titles we have WP:MOS#Article_titles and in particular WP:NAME. As a general rule, English is messy, so WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS applies even less to the finer points of the language. And for me, "fly around Earth" is ok, unless I contrast it with "fly around the Earth", which is oker ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:26, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we should necessarily try too hard to get consistency between articles. Consider WP:ENGVAR - different articles are expected to use different variations of the language, and we should only strive for consistency within articles. SHEFFIELDSTEEL 22:27, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'd say "yes".—RJH (talk) 16:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I too would probably support moving History of Earth to History of the Earth. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:49, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose move to Age of Earth. The only argument in favour seems to be that English is or should be consistent. The claim that it is is quite simply false; The claim that it should be runs foul of WP:NOT. Either way, no move please. Andrewa (talk) 08:55, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. I was ready to support this move based on the google search count results, but then I did some poking around in the search results and realized the significance of the leading "The" in the results. When I modified the search criteria to take care of this case, it showed that "Age of the Earth" is clearly preferred to "Age of Earth" (see below). --Born2cycle (talk) 18:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose per idiom. The best explanation I can give for the idiom is that the Earth is a proper name for the planet, whereas Earth is a proper name for Ge/Demeter/Erda; but the fact of idiom is deniable only by the tone-deaf. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:38, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not opposed to keeping the article where it is. The article title and the article were different, Age of Earth sounded better to me, and Google 'seemed' to support it, so I started a discussion, noting that I was happy to be corrected. I have been corrected and I don't think there is any argument for a move now. However, I still think there should be some consistency between other similar articles - if it's considered proper for this article, why not others? WP:ENGVAR seems to talk about national varieties, and that isn't really the problem here (is it?). Should I start a discussion on History of Earth or not? Ben (talk) 00:41, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I applaud your efforts to create naming consistency where reasonably possible. So, yes, I urge you to withdraw this move proposal and start one over there. By the way, please read my proposal for a somewhat more ambitious effort to bring more consistency to Misplaced Pages naming. Your comments would be appreciated. Thanks. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:48, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I've started a discussion at Talk:History of Earth, so if anyone is interested can you please weigh in, and then I'll put in a move request if the consensus is to move. Cheers, Ben (talk) 00:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose this is better English. 70.55.86.100 (talk) 06:33, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Google results

Basic:

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,300,000 for "age of earth".

Results 1 - 10 of about 261,000 for "age of the earth".

On the surface, "Age of earth" appears to be favored.

Now search each phrase excluding the other.

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,940,000 for "Age of Earth" -"Age of the Earth".

Results 1 - 10 of about 388,000 for "Age of the Earth" -"Age of Earth"

"Age of Earth" is still favored over "Age of the Earth" by a factor of 10 to 1. Seemingly a slam dunk. But wait, many of those hits include "The age of the earth" and "The age of earth", so let's search for "The Age of Earth" and "The Age of the earth".

Results 1 - 10 of about 182,000 for "The age of earth".

Results 1 - 10 of about 163,000 for "The age of the earth".

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