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Nature 431, 253-254 (16 September 2004) | doi:10.1038/431253a; Published online 15 September 2004

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Geochemistry:  The clock's second hand

Alex Halliday1

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The relative abundances of magnesium isotopes in the Allende meteorite reveal the precise chronology of the early Solar System — a geochemical second hand on the clock of creation.

To illustrate the enormity of geological time, it is sometimes helpful to compress it into a more meaningful reference frame. For example, the four-and-half billion years it took to make the Earth as we know it can be mapped onto the one week of creation recorded in the biblical book of Genesis.

  1. Alex Halliday is in the Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zentrum, Zürich CH-8092, Switzerland, and the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 3PR, UK.
    e-mail: Email: halliday@erdw.ethz.ch

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