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Ram temple is being constructed in Ayodhya city of India. It has been claimed by various Indian news channels (which I don't trust very much) that a stone is used for its construction which is 65 million years old. Is this really true?

Sources:

  1. Statue of Ramlala will be made from this stone from 6.5 crore years old, being brought to Ayodhya

  2. Panchjanya on Twitter: "Two "Shaligram Shila" for Ram temple brought from Nepal. This rock is 60 million years old." (via Google Translate). This channel is also followed by my country's prime minister.

EDIT-

I was thinking this news would be not correct because that number was huge for me. Perhaps because I was not good at history. As the answers and comments suggest, it's look like that 65 Millions isn't a big deal. Thanks for your answers.

An_Elephant
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    "*The stone which is being sent to Ayodhya is 6.5 crore [65 million] years old and its age is said to be up to one lakh [100,000] years.*" What do they mean by "years old" vs "years of age" I wonder? – Schwern Feb 02 '23 at 17:41
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    Please don't put pseudo-answers in the comments. – Oddthinking Feb 02 '23 at 18:31
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    It's unclear to me whether the question is asking if rocks can be so old (or so young), or how it is known that this particular rock is 65 million years old. – Weather Vane Feb 02 '23 at 20:10
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    I'm not clear what's surprising about this claim. Unless you are some flavour of [Young Earth creationist](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism), surely it would be surprising if there *weren't* rocks that are millions of years old. – IMSoP Feb 02 '23 at 22:58
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    The comment clarifying that the OP was skeptical of the reported age because they thought it was too old should not have been deleted. – David Hammen Feb 03 '23 at 00:27
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    Plenty of rocks are 65 million years old. Dinosaurs lived about that time. They sometimes left their footprints in mud, which has since hardened into rock. And there were already rocks in dinosaur times that might be 100 million years old today. Is there something unusual about this particular rock? What reason do you have to doubt it? Do you think the figure is too young, or too old? – Pete Feb 03 '23 at 05:25
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    @DavidHammen well, clarifications like that should be in the body of the question, not in the comment section. – Danila Smirnov Feb 03 '23 at 07:47
  • @WeatherVane Hi , the question was about 1st one. Sorry. – An_Elephant Feb 03 '23 at 10:29
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    @An_Elephant you might find this to be interesting reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_dated_rocks – fyrepenguin Feb 03 '23 at 22:51
  • @fyrepenguin Wow thanks. Rocks about 4 billion years are even there ! – An_Elephant Feb 04 '23 at 08:08
  • Well the earth's crust was formed about 4 billion years and many rocks of that initial formation are still around. They don't go bad or expire :-) – Hilmar Feb 05 '23 at 14:37
  • @Hilmar Yes . I had idea that they would have eroded – An_Elephant Feb 05 '23 at 15:31
  • @IMSoP No , I am not. – An_Elephant Apr 16 '23 at 00:48

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"Shaligram Shila", or Shaligram stone, mentioned in your links, are a specific kind of fossilized ammonite remains found in the valley of the Kali Gandaki river (they are considered sacred in Hinduism). As ammonites went extinct after Cretaceous period, any ammonite fossil would be older than 65 million years old. They could be even older, in fact - with a cursory search I found a mention of Jurassic ammonite fossils found in the region, which would mean an age of up to 200 million years.

Danila Smirnov
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