I own some rocks that are likely billions of years old
That’s cool. I want to travel to the Canadian Northern islands someday and see the rocks there, which are likely that old. Some deposits on Michigan’s upper peninsula also date back to the Hadean, apparently.
Aren’t most(all?) rocks billions of years old? Are we making new rocks?
We are in areas of high volcanism!
I was in Iceland a few months ago, and in some areas the rocks are only tens of years old. There are entire plains of lava flows that are only a few thousand years old. (Same for Hawaii, too.)
Rocks can grow baby rocks that grow mini rocks.
I have three extremely good condition $2 US bills from the 50s before they started printing “In God We Trust” on them.
I own land. It’s been there all along.
My house, built in 1880.
Wow I bet it is such a great house!
It’s a very very very fine house.
Survivorship bias means only old houses left are the great ones.
I’ve got some rocks on a shelf from the Permian. So a little older than 250 million years.
I have a pendant which is made of a tiny piece of Campo Del Cielo meteorite. It’s several billion years old (4.5 according to wiki).
This comment made me realize how much of a ship of Theseus question this is. If you own made of stone, is that the “as old as” the stone, or when the thing was made? If your meteor was made into something, does it somehow change its age? None of that matter came from nowhere though, so the meteor was made from even older stuff, eventually going back to the creation of the universe.
For rock material, we generally consider it’s age as when it solidifies. Most meteorites are this age because they came from a supernova explosion of our sun at the end of its prior generation. This ejected most all elemental material lager than Hydrogen in our solar system. These elements were fused in that prior sun and ejected during the explosion. What didn’t coalesce into a larger body (e.g. a planet) froze into space dust and small asteroids, some of which falls to earth.
So, the amalgam that makes up the rock is 4.5Ga (giga anum), the minerals within are about the same. However, the elements that made up the stone were made long before in inside the prior sun. Now how long the subatomic particles have been around is a question for someone else.
I know how it all works, but it’s just somewhat weird. Some of the posts in this thread are about houses, but they are made up of other things, sometimes older, like bricks. They don’t consider those though. If the OP here used his meteorite as a piece of his house, would he no longer consider it the oldest thing he owns? It’s a ship of Theseus. Why does it change when it’s part of something else? (Rhetorical question.)
A 17th century bible.
I have one too. It’s big.
My birth certificate ☺️
Your mom.
Gottem.
A tooth from a megalodon. Not sure how old it is exactly, somewhere between 3.6 million years and 23 million years.
1855 handbook from the freemasons detailing their rituals, imagery, ranks, and more.
A cast iron pan that I inherited from my grandmother is around 100 years old.
1929 My house
197X My keychain
1993 My first guitar
1995 My car1993 My first guitar
1995 My carSee kids? Don’t start playing guitar or you’ll end up like this guy.
It’s a volvo so it simply won’t die. It’s likely to be replaced this upcoming spring, though.
My knees.
My grandfather founded a liquid propane company and I have the adding machine he used as a register. It may not be quite literally the oldest thing I own, but I consider it the coolest old thing I own.
The sides of it are plastic so you can see the mechanisms and it weighs a gazillion pounds. My wife hates it because we’ve moved it through three houses. I love it and will never voluntarily let it go.
