The Hawaiian Islands: A falsification of a young earth

This is a work in progress. Please comment and provide additional thoughts that support this hypothesis or tear it to pieces.

The geology of the Hawaiian Islands give us several independent lines of evidence that falsify young earth (and global flood) theories.

These include:
1) Progressively older K-Ar dating results the further away from the current volcanic activity (a problem with dating would not show the consistent older ages as we move away from current activity).

2) The progressively older dating is evidence of the uniformity of the movement of the "Hot Spot" of volcanic activity that formed the chain and clearly shows that the islands were not all formed at the same time and that the chain was formed over time.

3) The K-Ar ages and the uniformity of the movement is further supported by the erosion patters shown. The further away from the current volcanic activity, the more eroded the islands are.

4) There are several submerged islands in the chain that are the furthest away from the current volcanic activity. The erosion of the islands and their current near surface submersion shows that the water level has not changed recently during the period of erosion

5) The erosion of the volcanic islands would take longer than YEC permits

6) There are no sediments or deposits on the islands that would show that they have been submerged in water which shows that they have not been underwater in their history.

This line of evidence falsifies a young earth (< 10,000 years) because it confirms the uniformity of plate techtonics, shows that the islands were not eroded by a flood but instead have eroded by rain and standard, accepted, current processes.

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html

I agree; the Emperor Seamount Chain and the recent Hawaiian Islands are excellent evidence that the Earth is much older than 6-12 thousand years. I've brought up this argument before, so expect responses like:

1. K-Ar dating is false (although the opposition tends to not understand how the dating process works or why it should be considered false)

2. Plate motions have not been relatively constant over time and were much faster in the past (although this is not substantiated by the evidence, nor is it geophysically possible)

The Emperor Seamount Chain even indicates how the Pacific plate has changed the direction of its movement throughout its history. The most convincing evidence comes from sedimentation, subsidence of these islands over time as the lithosphere cools, and of course the theory of plate tectonics itself which, when you consider the evidence from the movement of the plate over the hot spot, combined with other evidence of plate motions (paleomagnetics, for example and dating methods as you mentioned), the data match up when cross-referenced.

You brought up a very good argument.

This is one of the reasons why I find this line of evidence particularly damaging to YEC. Most YEC arguments try to show a flaw in the dating by showing wildly disparaging dates. The island chain show great consistence from young to old that conforms to the geology of plate techtonics and slow erosion of the volcanic island formations.

Also, if there was a "rapid" decay, I don't think that this progression of ages can be described by it unless the rate is still "rapid". The ages shown here can't be explained by a burst in decay rates or by a declining decay rate. Either of these arguments would still not upset the fact that the evidence show that the islands were not created at the same time and were layed out in progression, and eroded over time (slowly) without the help of a flood. The age dating and erosion and creation process of the islands would be hard to explain with anything other than the uniformitarian principle.

This one is particularly good.&nbsp; IF &nbsp;K-Ar dating were unreliable, the deduction is that we would see no consistent pattern of age with distance from the current volcanic activity.&nbsp; A point closer to the current volcanic activity would be oder than one farther away.

Since the observation is exactly opposite, it supports the reliability of K-Ar and falsifies the hypothesis of unreliability.

A note here.&nbsp; The papers by Austin and others trying to discredit K-Ar try to use K-Ar on contemporary events.&nbsp; However, K-Ar is not reliable under 100,000 years due to the slow rate of decay of K40. Therefore the papers are incorrectly using the technique.&nbsp;

DNAunion: Here's a constructive criticism.

It is not the Hot Spot that moves: it remains stationary and the plates, which lie above, move across it.


PS: Let's not get relativistic here. Yes, one could consider this from the point of view of the plate in which case it would be the hot spot that moves. But that is not the common way of expressing what happens: the typical frame of reference for such phenomena is the Earth as a whole.

DNAunion: Notto, the Hot Spot thing is convincing, but I consider the strongest evidence against YEC to be sea floor spreading (of course, in the context of plate tectonics). The following is off the top of my head.

1) It explains the current jigsaw-puzzle fit that would occur if we could bring together the continental shelves (which would be more precise than if we just look at the shape of the continents on a map). And if we measure the rate at which the continents are currently receding from each other (here I am referring to North America and Europe), it averages out to being something like 2 to 4 inches per year. Extrapolation indicates that it would require millions of years for the the continents to have "drifted" that far apart (Pangaea supposedly began breaking up about 200 MYa, IIRC).

2) The magnetic flux reversals on the ocean floor that resulted during sea floor spreading show that the Earth's magnetic poles have reversed many times during the formation of the current sea floor (as the molten rock that comes out of the midoceanic ridge solidifies, it aligns according to the magnetic polarity of Earth at that time: the striping patterns observed in the rock indicates the polarity of Earth's magnetic field has reversed numerous times). Since humans have not yet experienced a reversal in the Earth's poles, we can conclude that it takes a long time for it to occur (even without looking to science for a time frame, but doing so would give us a much better estimate of the time period involved). For the many reversals needed to create the striping on the sea floor to occur, the Earth must be more than 10,000 years old (IIRC, each magnetic reversal is on the order of 10,000 or more years).

And there are others.

If these did not occur naturally, then did God plant misleading evidence to lead us away from a belief in Him? That just wouldn't jibe with religious beliefs, so we should conclude that the jigsaw-puzzle fit is a result of continental drift (caused by sea floor spreading), that alternating stripes of magnetic polarity in the sea floor are the result of reversals of the Earth's magnetic poles, and so on.

The theory of plate tectonics is just too convincing to dismiss: too much fits together too perfectly and too many observations confirm it. I hope YECs don't argue against the theory itself, but rather direct their assaults on the time frames that would be involved (though I see even that attempt as leading nowhere really fast, considering how much other evidence there is for an "old Earth").

but doesn't the standard argument of YEC say that the earth was created with all those things already there?

__________________
------i'm going to live forever. so far, so good.--------
"I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect." ~Oscar Wilde

Orihalcon:

It can't. Not if it expect to be considered scientific. That idea is non-falsifiable, as is the concept that the world was created last Thursday by an invisible pink cat with the appearance of age and our memories intact.

__________________
--Zadok001, aka Greater Good fanatic

well, it's not like i've been presented with any non-refuted arguments for YEC anyway... =P

__________________
------i'm going to live forever. so far, so good.--------
"I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect." ~Oscar Wilde

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