Deep time

[[File:Hutton James portrait Raeburn.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Don't you look at James Hutton — James Hutton ain't gon' save you.]]{{sciencenav}}
'''Deep time''' is the idea, held to be credible by natural researchers since the early 19<sup>th</sup> century, that the [[Earth]]  is millions or billions of years old, rather than the few thousand that [[young Earth creationism]] claims.  

==History==
The concept was first formally proposed by James Hutton, a [[Scottish]] [[geologist]], in 1788. Hutton and his various contemporaries challenged the then-standard concept of a 6,000 year old Earth by studying the geological strata and stating he could find no rational "beginning of time", if layers were consistently formed, a basis of Lyell's ''[[Uniformitarianism]].''  The continuing process whereby rocks are eroded and new sedimentary rocks form out of the remains of older eroded rocks was previously known. Hutton, however, observed further this process takes so long that the Earth must be much older than a few thousand years. Although he was an absolutely ''terrible'' writer, his friends translated his observations into something at least somewhat readable so it could reach a broader audience.<ref>[http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/earth/p_hutton.html James Hutton: The Founder of Modern Geology]</ref>

==Evidence==
{{main|Evidence against a recent creation}}
Evidence for [[deep time]] includes:
* [[Geology|Geological strata]]
* Geological formations, like canyons cut by rivers, and the [[Triassic]] Cliffs cut by the sea.
* [[Fossil]] records, though there is large dependence on the geological strata, for fossils to "prove" an age of the [[Earth]].
* [[Radiometric dating]] systems, which use the constant rate of [[radioactive decay]] of unstable [[nuclide]]s in the Earth's crust to place the age of the Earth at 4.5 billion years.
* Dating of the [[Sun]] and [[Moon]]
* Dating of the formation of our [[Solar system]]
* Evidence for the age of the [[Universe]]

==Other uses==
In [[cosmology]], "deep time" can mean forecasts about the [[Ultimate fate of the Universe|ultimate fate]] of the [[universe]]. Such forecasts often look ''trillions'' of years into the future,<ref>And sometimes still ''{{wpl|Future of an expanding universe|far, far more}}'' away</ref> many many times the universe's current age.

==See also==
*[[Age of the Earth]]
*[[Branches of science you have to ignore to believe in Young Earth Creationism]]
*[[Lower limit on the age of the universe]]
*[[Radioactive decay]]
*[[Science]]
*[[Scientific method]]
*The incontrovertible evidence for [[common descent]]
*[[James Ussher]] — who first claimed to have calculated the age of the Earth based on the [[Bible]], and is the source of young Earth creationism

*[[101 evidences for a young age of the earth and the universe]] &mdash; a "side by side" rebuttal.

==External links==
*[http://deeptime.info/ Deep Time: A History of the Earth -Interactive Infographic]
*[http://www.deeptimewalk.org/ Deep Time Walk: A History of the living Earth]
*[http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/projects/projects/DeptII_DastonLorraine-SciencesOfDeepTime Working Group: The Archives of Deep-Time Sciences]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Science]]

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Categories: Science