Too much carbon-14 to support old earth?

[laptoppop]

(I shouldn't be doing this - I've got so much to do its like I don't know where to start)

I would be interested in hearing a counter to an interesting problem.

Carbon-14, used in carbon dating of various things, decays with a half life of something like 5730 years. After a period of time, it should be undetectable using current equipment - i.e. below the "noise" threshold. The article I'm referencing gives the max detectable age number as about 250K years, or about 43.6 half-lives. In other words, after that time there should not be any C-14 that we could detect. If we do detect C-14 in a particular sample, either the sample is less than 250K years, or there's been contamination of the sample.

The problem is that there is way too much C-14 in many fossils. Fossils dated 350 million uniformitarian years old are consistently coming up with uniformitarian dates of less than 90K years.

details and references galore: http://www.icr.org/pdf/research/RATE_ICC_Baumgardner.pdf

I did find one article for excess c-14 in coal that hypothesized that the c-14 was being made within the sample itself through a radioactive decay of the uranium-thorium isotope series -- but they gave no measurements or experiements to confirm this theory - just a conjecture. I would expect there would be other by-products that could be measured to confirm this if it were the case - indeed, they may have been done, I'm just not finding it.

So - is this a big problem for old-earth dates, or is there a tested explanation?

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Just out of curiosity, what is the IRC or any YEC model for C-14 and what predictions does their model make?

 

[laptoppop]

The paper I referenced addresses that - but only in a few paragraphs. They show that the levels observed are consistent with what you could expect from a world about 2,000 years old that then had a flood which then trapped and encapsulated the organic material. Over 2,000 years the carbon ratios would not have reached steadystate - and that is included in their model.

edit: that came out poorly. Their model is consistent with an earth of about 6,000 years total age that had a fossil creating flood about 2,000 years after creation.

 

[jeffweeder]

Another dramatic breakthrough concerns radiocarbon. It’s long been known that radiocarbon (i.e. carbon-14, or 14C) keeps popping up reliably in samples (of coal, oil, gas, etc.) which are supposed to be ‘millions of years’ old. However, with the short half-life of 14C it should decay to zero in only some tens of thousands of years at the most.5 For instance, CMIhas, over the years, commissioned and funded the radiocarbon testing of a number of wood samples from ‘old’ sites (e.g. samples with Jurassic fossils, samples inside Triassic sandstone, and samples burnt by Tertiary basalt) and these were published (by then staff geologist Dr Andrew Snelling) in TJ—the in-depth journal of creation. In each case, with contamination eliminated, the result has been in the thousands of years, i.e. 14C was present when it ‘shouldn’t have been’. These results encouraged the rest of the RATE team to investigate 14C further, building on the literature reviews of creationist physician Dr Paul Giem.
In another very important paper, scientists from the RATE group summarized the pertinent facts and presented further experimental data.6 The bottom line is that virtually all biological specimens, no matter how ‘old’ they are supposed to be, show measurable 14C levels.
This effectively limits the age of all buried biota to less than (at most) 250,000 years. (When one takes into account the probability that before the Flood the ratio of radioactive to ‘normal’ carbon was much lower,7 the calculated age comes right down into the biblical ‘ballpark’.)
Interestingly, specimens which appear to definitely be pre-Flood seem to have 14C present, too, and importantly, these cluster around a lower relative amount of 14C. This suggests that some 14C was primordial (existing from the very beginning), and not produced by cosmic rays—thus limiting the age of the entire earth to only a few thousand years.
This appears to have been somewhat spectacularly supported when Dr Baumgardner sent five diamonds to be analyzed for 14C. It was the first time this had been attempted, and the answer came back positive—14C was present. The diamonds, formed deep inside the earth, are assumed by evolutionists to be over a billion years old. Nevertheless they contained radioactive carbon, even though, if the billion-year age were correct, they ‘shouldn’t have’.
This is exceptionally striking evidence, because a diamond has remarkably strong lattice bonds (that’s why it’s the hardest substance known), so subsequent atmospheric or biological contamination should not find its way into the interior.
The diamonds’ carbon-dated ‘age’ of about 58,000 years is thus an upper limit for the age of the whole earth. Again, this is entirely consistent with helium diffusion results reported above, which indicate the upper limit is in fact substantially less.8,9
14C workers have no real answer to this problem, namely that all the ‘vast-age’ specimens they measure still have 14C. Labelling this detectable 14C with such words as ‘contamination’ and ‘background’ is completely unhelpful in explaining its source, as the RATE group’s careful analyses and discussions have shown. But it is no problem or mystery at all if the uniformitarian/long-age assumptions are laid to one side and the real history of the world, given in Scripture, is taken seriously. The 14C is there, quite simply, because it hasn’t had time to decay yet. The world just isn’t that old!
The 14C results are an independent but powerful confirmation of the stunning helium-diffusion results. It looks like 2003 was a bad year for megachronophiles (lovers of long ages), but a good year for lovers of the Word of God.

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/547/

 

[rmwilliamsll]

14C workers have no real answer to this problem,

that is not true. it took me less than 5 minutes to find out that the answer is C14 created in situ from N14 as a result of (usually) U radioactive decay near the diamond or other sample.

btw: C14 dating is ONLY valid on items that were once alive and got their carbon from the atmosphere and are not exposed to neutron producing radiation which will make C14 in the sample.

 

[laptoppop]

14C workers have no real answer to this problem,

that is not true. it took me less than 5 minutes to find out that the answer is C14 created in situ from N14 as a result of (usually) U radioactive decay near the diamond or other sample.

Measured/observed or hypothesized?

btw: C14 dating is ONLY valid on items that were once alive and got their carbon from the atmosphere and are not exposed to neutron producing radiation which will make C14 in the sample.

OK, so what about the fossils with C14? (or are you saying that everything is contaminated and therefore carbon dating is worthless?)

There is also dating and then there is dating. There is dating as in "this is less than 250,000 years old" and there is dating as in "this is 12,547 years old". If *any* of this exists in things supposedly millions of years old, it needs to be explained.

 

[Assyrian]

One problem with C14 is that contamination is so easy, and because older dates have less C14, a tiny amount of contamination, through atmospheric CO2 or bacteria will produce a false reading in the region of tens of thousands of years. The thing is, although the amount of C14 is small, it varies wildly, with some fossil fuels having no detectable C14 at all. The best correlation seem to be with the radioactive isotopes in the surrounding rock.

The question here for YEC is not why is there C14 in some coal, but why some coal has none. If the coal was all formed 4,500 years ago in a one year flood then all the coal should have the same amount of C14 starting off and will have the same amount of C14 left today. It doesn't.

A bigger question for YECs is missing isotopes. Why are the only radioactive isotopes with a half life less than about 80 million years, ones that are continually being produced like C14 or the daughter isotopes of U235. There are plenty of radioactive isotopes with half lives much longer than C14's which are simply missing. Now from a scientific point of view it is easily explained, after 4.5 billion years an isotope with a half life of 50 million years would have all disappeared, with maybe just an atom left, no sorry it's gone.

YECs have to believe that God chose to create the world using only isotopes that would have a half life after the fall greater than 80 million years. It is not that he didn't like shorter lived isotopes, he has no problem with them being produced by the longer lived isotopes. He just didn't create any of these isotopes when he created the earth.

According to Jeffweeder God included C14 in the earth when he created it. So God created short half life isotopes that are also being continually produced naturally on the earth, but none of the isotopes that aren't produced naturally. He seem to have chosen only the isotopes that would still be here after 4.5 billion years.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

OK, so what about the fossils with C14? (or are you saying that everything is contaminated and therefore carbon dating is worthless?)


which fossils?

anything that is buried near a source of neutrons is going to give an unreliable C14 dating. the more neutrons the more the technique is unuseable. it is not a problem for the dating technique it is a sampling issue.

what is most curious about these types of arguments is that they seem to think that a problem with a dating technique means that the technique is wrong. ignoring the extraordinary consilience of tree rings, varve pollen and C14 dating, to major in minors. Yes, there are contamination questions, look at any university lab accepting samples for dating and you will see a list of physical and chemical contamination procedures. This doesn't invalid the data, let alone the technique and underlying science.

 

[laptoppop]

One problem with C14 is that contamination is so easy, and because older dates have less C14, a tiny amount of contamination, through atmospheric CO2 or bacteria will produce a false reading in the region of tens of thousands of years. The thing is, although the amount of C14 is small, it varies wildly, with some fossil fuels having no detectable C14 at all. The best correlation seem to be with the radioactive isotopes in the surrounding rock.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here - but have you found examples of measured observations, or just speculation? So far, I haven't found anyone doing measurements to prove the existence of the other isotopes.

The question here for YEC is not why is there C14 in some coal, but why some coal has none. If the coal was all formed 4,500 years ago in a one year flood then all the coal should have the same amount of C14 starting off and will have the same amount of C14 left today. It doesn't.

A bigger question for YECs is missing isotopes. Why are the only radioactive isotopes with a half life less than about 80 million years, ones that are continually being produced like C14 or the daughter isotopes of U235. There are plenty of radioactive isotopes with half lives much longer than C14's which are simply missing. Now from a scientific point of view it is easily explained, after 4.5 billion years an isotope with a half life of 50 million years would have all disappeared, with maybe just an atom left, no sorry it's gone.

YECs have to believe that God chose to create the world using only isotopes that would have a half life after the fall greater than 80 million years. It is not that he didn't like shorter lived isotopes, he has no problem with them being produced by the longer lived isotopes. He just didn't create any of these isotopes when he created the earth.

He seem to have chosen the isotopes that would have survived naturally after 4.5 billion years.

Let's finish the discussion about this particular short lived isotope before moving on, please.

 

[laptoppop]

OK, so what about the fossils with C14? (or are you saying that everything is contaminated and therefore carbon dating is worthless?)


which fossils?

anything that is buried near a source of neutrons is going to give an unreliable C14 dating. the more neutrons the more the technique is unuseable. it is not a problem for the dating technique it is a sampling issue.

what is most curious about these types of arguments is that they seem to think that a problem with a dating technique means that the technique is wrong. ignoring the extraordinary consilience of tree rings, varve pollen and C14 dating, to major in minors. Yes, there are contamination questions, look at any university lab accepting samples for dating and you will see a list of physical and chemical contamination procedures. This doesn't invalid the data, let alone the technique and underlying science.

Please look at the paper I cited in the OP. This is not a rare finding - there are a ton of cases, and people have tried extraordinary things to avoid contamination.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Given the short 14C half-life of 5730 years, organic materials purportedly older than 250,000 years, corresponding to 43.6 half-lives, should contain absolutely no detectable 14C.

Not a good sign when the first sentence is a lie...

Since C-14 is easily made the idea that a sample should have none is an outright lie.

Why should I trust the rest of the article when it starts with a lie?

There is other ways to produce C-14 that keeps the level in most objects from reaching zero c-14, that is why it is said that when the C-14 levels drop to a certain point there is no way to accurately date the object because the high possibility that it has been contaminated by non atmospheric c-14.

Here are some links to production of C-14 by nuclear reactors and explosions.

http://www.health-physics.com/pt/re/healthphys/abstract.00004032-197704000-00001.htm;jsessionid=F1nGN4dm0LTcmt2GL43sGMMStSFMq1ddVLKK5nTCy3RK1j53qkLw!1287082388!-949856145!8091!-1

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=222820

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1977cpnr.rept.....D

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1960PNAS...46..241L

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/46/2/241

 

[laptoppop]

(I hate over-the-top rhetoric)
A lie? no. Yes, it could have been more precise by saying something like "uncontaminated organic materials". Sheesh. The word "lie" is very strong, implying deliberate deception. Lets disagree without invective, ok?

Interesting links - but not relevant to the discussion. I'm not saying that nuclear processes cannot form C-14. I'm asking if there have been any studies showing measurement of contamination methods in fossils. Unless you are saying that the dinosaurs were exploding nuclear bombs or running reactors <grin> - there's not a lot of relevancy to the links.

The C-14 has been measured and documented. Has anyone documented the alleged contaminations, or is it conjecture? Please note - conjecture doesn't mean "not true" it just means "not proven".

 

[Mallon]

Has anyone documented the alleged contaminations, or is it conjecture? Please note - conjecture doesn't mean "not true" it just means "not proven".

C14 contamination is addressed and documented all over the literature. A simple search for "C14 contamination" in PubMed, Web of Science, or any other science lit database will show that. Even shows up in papers re: dating the Shroud of Turin, not surprisingly.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

(I hate over-the-top rhetoric)
A lie? no. Yes, it could have been more precise by saying something like "uncontaminated organic materials". Sheesh. The word "lie" is very strong, implying deliberate deception. Lets disagree without invective, ok?

Interesting links - but not relevant to the discussion. I'm not saying that nuclear processes cannot form C-14. I'm asking if there have been any studies showing measurement of contamination methods in fossils. Unless you are saying that the dinosaurs were exploding nuclear bombs or running reactors <grin> - there's not a lot of relevancy to the links.

The C-14 has been measured and documented. Has anyone documented the alleged contaminations, or is it conjecture? Please note - conjecture doesn't mean "not true" it just means "not proven".

I gave you articles citing the production of c-14 by nuclear power plants and explosions, so yes, it has been measured, it has been known for a long time that exposure to radioactive sources produces C-14 and that anything buried for any amount of time is exposed to radiation.

After 5 min. of searching I found plenty of information about this.

Since ICR claims to do research, the lack of citing these items, this means that the authors were either lying about doing research or lying about what c-14 is expected to be found. Which is it?

And how did you search, it seems we all found information quickly and easily, yet you cliam to find none...

Are you really searching as you claim? Are you even bothering to google the subject?

 

[laptoppop]

What I'm not finding yet is specific measurements of surroundings or calculations (in the case of background radiation) that would account for the c-14 levels that are commonly found in fossils. Yes, some things can be contaminated. Yes, nuclear explosions can create C-14. But has anyone in the conventional science community studied C-14 levels in fossils and measured/demonstrated how the supposed contamination took place? Just saying its contaminated is not sufficient without observation of the contaminating vector.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

What I'm not finding yet is specific measurements of surroundings or calculations (in the case of background radiation) that would account for the c-14 levels that are commonly found in fossils. Yes, some things can be contaminated. Yes, nuclear explosions can create C-14. But has anyone in the conventional science community studied C-14 levels in fossils and measured/demonstrated how the supposed contamination took place? Just saying its contaminated is not sufficient without observation of the contaminating vector.

Have you bothered to check the journals for studies? Scientist print these handy things so anyone can check their work. Or do you assume that they just make this stuff up?

If you have not even bothered to look, then why should we spoon feed you information that you will just ignore in your next thread like you have done here so many times before.

 

[laptoppop]

Yes, I have been looking - but so far I have found only theory, not observations. I really am trying to be fair -- *I* brought up contamination in the OP.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

More links... Fun stuff.


Study of radiation levels and their effects on coal miners.

http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayArticleForFree.cfm?doi=b202693g&JournalCode=EM

Easy reading FAQ on background radiation.

http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/air/factsheets-htm/FactSht10.htm

An easy read on the dating of dinosaur fossils, further showing the dishonesty of your article since fossils are not dated directly using radioisotopes.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinofossils/Fossildating.html

An article on highly radioactive fossils from the Gobi.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v214/n5084/abs/214161a0.html

 

[laptoppop]

More links... Fun stuff.


Study of radiation levels and their effects on coal miners.

http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayArticleForFree.cfm?doi=b202693g&JournalCode=EM

Easy reading FAQ on background radiation.

http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/air/factsheets-htm/FactSht10.htm

OK, fine - I read the links. They are only marginally relevant. Yes, there's background radiation. Has anyone done calculations to show that this radiation, most likely combined with n14 in the fossils, i think, can account for the observed levels of C14?

An easy read on the dating of dinosaur fossils, further showing the dishonesty of your article since fossils are not dated directly using radioisotopes.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinofossils/Fossildating.html

Are you trying to be insulting? The article never said that the fossils were dated using radioisotopes. It said that IF the fossils and strata were as old as assumed by conventional interpretation that they would not expect any measurable c-14. For example - can you demonstrate that the background radiation levels combined with the fossils would create c-14 at a rate faster than that same c-14 would decay? I strongly suspect not - because there are some samples in which c-14 is not found. I suspect just background radiation is insufficient to explain the existing c-14, but I'll admit I don't KNOW. I want DATA, not conjecture.

An article on highly radioactive fossils from the Gobi.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v214/n5084/abs/214161a0.html

[/quote]
Interesting, but not applicable. In the case of these particular radioactive fossils one could make a case for excessive c-14 generation if you did the measurements and calculation. But this doesn't address the over 70 examples from the article.

Please try to avoid ad hominem references. I'm really asking - and I have been googling - and I'm just not seeing any studies in this very specific area -- which is crucial in terms of the age of the strata and fossils. Yes, I'm a YEC, and I expect young strata -- but this is hard data, not conjecture or theory, that challenges the conventional age calculations and I'm wanting to know if there is a good answer for it.

 

[laptoppop]

One note: I don't subscribe to Nature, so I'd have to spend $30. to read the last article. From the abstract they refer to "highly radioactive" which I am assuming to mean MUCH more than the very low level c-14 activity I'm talking about. If my assumption is wrong, I apologize. For now, it seems like this article is not relevant.