Dating our past

Radioactive dating for rocks had puzzled me for quite some time, my problem lies in the theory I had that unlike living matter (radio active carbon dating is used), there can be no life span for rocks or geological structures. That is all matter right, WHat do you mean when you say that this (rock) matter was created some this billion years old.

Where I was wrong was, like living matter, rocks also go through a process of metamorphosis
they are born where they are crystallized,when we talk of radio active dating we are talking of dating this crystallization period, which is entirely differnt from dating the matter itself, which when it was created is another puzzle altogether.

WE make use of Zircon crystals for this kind of geological dating.By this approach we have concluded that "Acasta gneiss (a small patch of metamorphic rock southeast of Great
Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories)is the metamorphosed remains of one of the oldest known intact, solid rock on the earth's surface"

This along with other geological proofs point to "trivial quantities of continental crust to begin with, About 3.8 billion years ago the earth's mantle began to separate into lighter and denser components, releasing the raw material from which continental blocks formed. The continents seem to have continued growing rapidly until roughly 2.5 billion years ago"

So what were the dynamics of the earth's inner core during the creation of the continental mass ?."Geophysicists can trace recent continental motions by means of the magnetic record preserved in the ocean floor. Ocean floors survive only about 200 million years before they sink back into the earth's mantle at oceanic margins, such as along the Pacific trench of Asia."

To go further, we need some newer technologies, But one thing is clear, the hard surface we call the earth's crust, which we claim as motherland, build boundaries, fight wars is just a recent phenomena, in geological span of things. How insignificant we , our knowledge and our perspective truly are. Nevertheless, we are beginning to understand and unravel things, our quest continues!