How old is the earth?

[IndyPirate]

Wow. There are still people fighting about radiometric dating? Why? Do you think that we are stupid enough to not know how atomic decay happens?

 

[Jim Larmore]

Wow. There are still people fighting about radiometric dating? Why? Do you think that we are stupid enough to not know how atomic decay happens?

Atomic decay is not what is being questioned on this. What is being questioned is the samples being evaluated to be prestine over time without things to effect that decay. Contamination can effect decay rate substantially and near by radioactive sources could as well.

There has to be some major assumptions made for radiometric dating to be valid. Heres a few of them:

1. What ever system produced the sample had to be essentially a closed system with no chance of contamination.

2. What ever system produced the sample had to initially contain no daughter products from the radioactive decay.

3. The decay process has to be constant thru out time.

4. The clock for the sample had to start at a beginning when no daughter products existed i.e. all of the U238 in the world had no Pb206 in or near it and no Pb 206 existed anywhere in the world.

These are just a few I could come up with a lot more. Here's the bottom line to my way of thinking. If this modality is to be taken seriously then it certainly cannot be used on a dynamic planet like earth where the norm is change, why? Because you cannot base a scientific certaintity on something that requires that many unknown assumptions to be valid.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[juvenissun]

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH581.html

Regardless, for the sake of argument, I'll accept the hearsay you quoted as true. You still have not accounted for the sequential mammillary coatings found up and down the canyon walls. These cannot be ignored since they cannot form overnight in turbid waters.

You seems to be very interested in the mammillary coating argument. It is dangerous to hold any argument based only on one piece of work. Do you want to talk more about this article with me? Or you rather walk me out of the game again?

The major problem about the article is on its assumption: the level of water table was contemporary with the river channel (of the Colorado River). U-Pb, U-U dating work on that work is one matter and the "interpretation" on the erosion speed of Colorado River is another matter. They tie these two together by the major assumption. It is a premature argument.

 

[juvenissun]

Now to the "mamillary coatings" you mentioned. It appears these are uranium/lead isotope based and they measure this by the standard radiometric dating methods and ratios. The only thing new is these particular mamillary crystals and their uniqueness. I have already mentioned the questionability of radiometric dating in the past. There are just too many assumptions that have to be made for radiometric dating to be valid. When I first started to question these modalities in a serious way I was reading up on some dating samples taken from fresh magma just extruded from a volcano. They dated this stuff at several billions of years old. Anyway, to me the fact that there are little or no erosional features in the lateral stratas is much more indicative of very rapid deposition.

Jim, a little background information for you:

This so called mammillary coating is nothing special but is a form of common stalactite, which is normally found in cave deposit. They called it "coating" because it is quite small (initial stage of growth) compare to normal stalactite. The small size of this cave and its deposit are where the problems lie. A simple way to see it is that the caves are very very young (no older than modern lime deposit dripped from a bridge). Of course, the U-Pb dating said otherwise. Regardless how would this work related to the canyon development, the age of the cave deposit itself is an interesting thing to think about. A common sense said that those small caves in the canyon area are not likely older than the Pleistocene age.

 

[lemmings]

1. What ever system produced the sample had to be essentially a closed system with no chance of contamination.

2. What ever system produced the sample had to initially contain no daughter products from the radioactive decay.

Zircon crystals chemically REJECT Pb. This property makes them an isolated system when doing U-Pb dating.

3. The decay process has to be constant thru out time.

There are two isotopes of U and Pb that is used in U-Pb dating.
U238 decays into Pb206 and U235 decays into Pb207 at different rates. If any contamination or the rates of decay slowed down, we would have seen it because the ratios of parent and daughter isotopes would have been off rendering conflicting dates.

4. The clock for the sample had to start at a beginning when no daughter products existed i.e. all of the U238 in the world had no Pb206 in or near it and no Pb 206 existed anywhere in the world.

No, there just can’t be any Pb in the sample at the time of formation. Zircon crystals take care of that because it is impossible for Pb to enter the structure.

 

[beamishboy]

Goodness! There's so much to this? Is there a book or website that offers Earth Dating 101? I'd like to know more but I need a glossary for Pb, etc. Hehe.

 

[USincognito]

Goodness! There's so much to this? Is there a book or website that offers Earth Dating 101? I'd like to know more but I need a glossary for Pb, etc. Hehe.

This USGS publication is primarily about plate tectonics, but contains a wealth of information about how the Earth is dated in very simple terms that the layman can understand.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/dynamic.html

 

[beamishboy]

This USGS publication is primarily about plate tectonics, but contains a wealth of information about how the Earth is dated in very simple terms that the layman can understand.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/dynamic.html

Thanks, I've put the link in my gmail for future reference.

 

[Jim Larmore]

Zircon crystals chemically REJECT Pb. This property makes them an isolated system when doing U-Pb dating.

Isolated from the environment? I don't think so. Even large fluctuations in the relative saturation of H2O or large changes in pressure in the atmosphere could change the rate. There are other things that can cause a false interpretation of age or rate of decay as well. For instance any change in high energy particle bombardment of neutrinos, mesons, or cosmic rays from the Van Allen belt would drastically change the rate.

Without knowing what existed in times past we can't make these determinations without making some large assumptions.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[gluadys]

Thanks, I've put the link in my gmail for future reference.

One simple guideline to remember is that there are more wrong answers than right answers. So, if there are two, three, four or more independent tests all giving the same date, it is likely to be correct.

If the decay rate had been corrupted by the various problems that can arise, independent tests would give wrong answers, but they would probably give different wrong answers.

There are a lot of things that would have to go wrong for all independent tests to be wrong. And it is extremely improbable that being wrong, they would all point to the same wrong date.

 

[Jim Larmore]

Independent tests of any sample can only test according to the assumptions already at work before the tests are made. It's the assumptions of things having to be a certain way and not knowing if that is the reality of it that are at the core of the validity of radiometric dating.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[IndyPirate]

Independent tests of any sample can only test according to the assumptions already at work before the tests are made. It's the assumptions of things having to be a certain way and not knowing if that is the reality of it that are at the core of the validity of radiometric dating.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

I don't think that you've done a good job of show that this assumptions are either large or wrong. If the assumptions were wrong then the different dating techniques would give conflicting answers.

 

[Jim Larmore]

I don't think that you've done a good job of show that this assumptions are either large or wrong. If the assumptions were wrong then the different dating techniques would give conflicting answers.

How so? Radiometric dating is based on the same principle of radioactive decay ratios whether it's Uranium-thorium-lead or Rubidium-strontum or Postassium Argon. Besides they do indeed show conflicting answers on a regular basis, with results varying at times several million years.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[lemmings]

Isolated from the environment? I don't think so.

Isolated from the environment with radiometric dating simply means that parent and daughter atoms can no longer enter the sample. Zircon crystals fit this definition.

Even large fluctuations in the relative saturation of H2O or large changes in pressure in the atmosphere could change the rate.

Radiometric decays is a nuclear process, this means that it is influenced by the intra-molecular forces. The relative abundance of atoms outside of the sample is irrelevant because they simply can not influence the rate.

For instance any change in high energy particle bombardment of neutrinos, mesons, or cosmic rays from the Van Allen belt would drastically change the rate.

High energy bombardment does not influence U-Pb dating, it does influence C14 dating but that is rarely used to date anything but human artifacts and creatures that have died since the last Ice Age.

Neutrinos rarely influence ordinary mater.

Mesons are subatomic particles that exist only in protons and neutrons. If they manage to get out they will decay in less than a billionth of a second so they can’t get far. These particles can only be produced by stars and particle colliders anyways so they will never influence an atom.

Cosmic rays do not come from the Van Allen Belt, they are usually a byproduct in solar wind traveling at 99% the speed of light. When these particles are usually atomic nuclei and they will break up almost instantly after hitting the atmosphere leaving no trace on the ground. They do influence the conversion of C12 to C14 however.

Without knowing what existed in times past we can't make these determinations without making some large assumptions.

These 'large assumptions' are usually "you know, maybe the stuff we see going on today can explain what happened yesterday." Until we see evidence that conflicts with this assumption, we might as well go on it.

 

[Jim Larmore]

Isolated from the environment with radiometric dating simply means that parent and daughter atoms can no longer enter the sample. Zircon crystals fit this definition.

Zircon crystals are not isolated from near by radioactive sources or physical pressures that can change the rate of decay.

Radiometric decays is a nuclear process, this means that it is influenced by the intra-molecular forces. The relative abundance of atoms outside of the sample is irrelevant because they simply can not influence the rate.

High energy bombardment does not influence U-Pb dating, it does influence C14 dating but that is rarely used to date anything but human artifacts and creatures that have died since the last Ice Age.

According to the laws of physics high energy bombardment can indeed effect decay rates by altering the emission of atomic particles producing a nuclide at a rate different than one without high energy bombardment.

These 'large assumptions' are usually "you know, maybe the stuff we see going on today can explain what happened yesterday." Until we see evidence that conflicts with this assumption, we might as well go on it.

Very true, but you know that won't fly in most cases in science. Most of the time science demands evidence to support what they are claiming. For instance there are all kinds of ideas about what dark matter is but without knowing more about what it really is they call it all speculation. The decay rate we see today cannot be considered to have always been like it is. There are just too many variable that could have effected it in the past.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Mallon]

2ble post.

 

[Mallon]

How do you explain the many examples of radiometric, dendrochronologic, and ice core dating yielding the same ages, Jim? Convenient coincidence? Conspiracy, maybe?

 

[Jim Larmore]

How do you explain the many examples of radiometric, dendrochronologic, and ice core dating yielding the same ages, Jim? Convenient coincidence? Conspiracy, maybe?

Having a degree in Biology/Chemistry/Engineering really helps you know. Since growth rings in trees are nothing more than the growth of the vascular cambium or outer lateral meristem. We know that certain things can effect it. The truth of the matter is this. Dendrochronology is not as accurate as you would think , i.e. making each ring count for a year and heres the reasons.

A. In some growing seasons ( depending on the conditions, rain, temperature and day light length , even insect investation) some trees (pines are a great example of this ) can show multiple growth rings in one year. How many times would that have to happen to a long lived tree like the "Bristlecone" to show a long age like 10,000 years?

B. Weather related flucuations caused by volcano eruptions have been known to cause multiple growing seasons in one year.

Varves? These are good examples of liquifaction during cyclic on off pressure not annual sedimentation. The reasons are these;

1. They for the most part are too uniform and show no evidence of erosion as you would expect from the dynamic forces of hydrology.

2. They are deposited over much wider areas than the streams that supposedly made them. Lakes and their feeding streams didn't produce most of the varves seen today.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Molal]

Having a degree in Biology/Chemistry/Engineering really helps you know. Since growth rings in trees are nothing more than the growth of the vascular cambium or outer lateral meristem. We know that certain things can effect it. The truth of the matter is this. Dendrochronology is not as accurate as you would think , i.e. making each ring count for a year and heres the reasons.

A. In some growing seasons ( depending on the conditions, rain, temperature and day light length , even insect investation) some trees (pines are a great example of this ) can show multiple growth rings in one year. How many times would that have to happen to a long lived tree like the "Bristlecone" to show a long age like 10,000 years?

B. Weather related flucuations caused by volcano eruptions have been known to cause multiple growing seasons in one year.

Varves? These are good examples of liquifaction during cyclic on off pressure not annual sedimentation. The reasons are these;

1. They for the most part are too uniform and show no evidence of erosion as you would expect from the dynamic forces of hydrology.

2. They are deposited over much wider areas than the streams that supposedly made them. Lakes and their feeding streams didn't produce most of the varves seen today.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

Please present peer reviewed published evidence so that we can review the data supporting your assertions on dendrochronology, varves, etc.

 

[Molal]

Zircon crystals are not isolated from near by radioactive sources or physical pressures that can change the rate of decay.

Are you suggesting that a change in temperature and pressure can alter the rate of radioactive decay?

I would like to think that you made a simple mistake....