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Contents of 7.6 How have scientists determined the age of Earth?

7.6 How have scientists determined the age of Earth?

• 1800s - Benoit de Maillet used fossils, observations of natural processes, and an assumption that they were deposited by the singular falling of an all-encompassing sea to achieve an age of 2.4 million years.
• James Hutton noted on the English coast that the thick sedimentary layers and their subsequent tilting must have represented long periods of time. From his 1788 Theory of the Earth
• "The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning—no prospect of an end." (Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, v1, p. 304)