5:15 PM - 7:15 PM
[SCG57-P08] On the term "age" and "date"
Keywords:terminology, age
In recent years, dating of various minerals (e.g. zircon), has become popular and is now commonly seen in Japanese journals. In the field of geosciences in Japan, it is common to assign the letter "nendai" to the term "age". However, as shown below, various proposals have been made in recent years for terms related to "age".
In this study, I reviewed the term "age'' to avoid confusion regarding terminology within Japan.
The definitions found in recent papers and textbooks are as follows:
date: number calculated using measured isotopic ratios and decay equation (Synonyms: apparent age)
age: date that has been found to have geological events (Faure, 1986; Schoene et al., 2013)
Some definitions that are relatively close to this are as follows(Kimura et al., 2019):
nenrei: Attributes of a phenomenon.
nendai: Attributes of a substance.
However, this usage is strictly different from mentioned above (Kimura et al., 2021).
On the other hand, if we go back to the original meanings of the English words, they are as follows:
date: a point on the time axis.
age : an interval on the time axis.
Furthermore, in the original meaning of the Japanese words, both "nenrei" and "nendai" often mean intervals on the time axis. Considering this definition, it seems inappropriate to translate "date" into Japanese as "nenrei".
On the other hand, some old Japanese documents use "nenrei" as the Japanese translation of "age" (for example, Hatsuda, 1949). As shown above, there are various opinions on the term "age". There seems to be no consensus on this term, both domestically and internationally.
In this study, I reviewed the term "age'' to avoid confusion regarding terminology within Japan.
The definitions found in recent papers and textbooks are as follows:
date: number calculated using measured isotopic ratios and decay equation (Synonyms: apparent age)
age: date that has been found to have geological events (Faure, 1986; Schoene et al., 2013)
Some definitions that are relatively close to this are as follows(Kimura et al., 2019):
nenrei: Attributes of a phenomenon.
nendai: Attributes of a substance.
However, this usage is strictly different from mentioned above (Kimura et al., 2021).
On the other hand, if we go back to the original meanings of the English words, they are as follows:
date: a point on the time axis.
age : an interval on the time axis.
Furthermore, in the original meaning of the Japanese words, both "nenrei" and "nendai" often mean intervals on the time axis. Considering this definition, it seems inappropriate to translate "date" into Japanese as "nenrei".
On the other hand, some old Japanese documents use "nenrei" as the Japanese translation of "age" (for example, Hatsuda, 1949). As shown above, there are various opinions on the term "age". There seems to be no consensus on this term, both domestically and internationally.