Geological dating techniques

IMO the idiocy of the dictum that “only new science is valid” and “I will only accept studies done in recent times” (for some this is a recent as only the past 5 years, for others 10, some 20, some the past 100 years, plus depending on the specific subject the goal post shifts) and then these types always manipulate the “acceptable criteria” box to only accept ONLY from Journals that adhere to their point of view, thus limiting if not eliminating insight, original thought, and a host of logical questions others from other fields may imply.

LOL! Imagine if you will that serious thinkers took them seriously....great so we must kick out Schroedinger, Planck, Openheimer, and forget Einstein....way too old or dead....none of them published in their Journals....and let’s toss out the Human Genome Project, after all that was over 15 years ago....in fact if we negate or refuse to take into account the scientific work of everything before 2000 guess what? Evolution itself is reduced to diddlysquat (and I believe in evolution just not everything evolutionists claim)...but rest assured if it supports their BELIEF they will insist it be accepted and included in discussions no matter how old or how speculative a hypothesis based interpretation may be.

Having studied how the masses are persuaded by propaganda technique for over 5 years, this type of shinanigan is called “stacking the deck” and is used in all forms of successful propaganda indoctrination, so why use it in discussions such as these? Physicists and Chemists do not use these thought control attempts when discussing....why only this camp? Why ALWAYS this camp? Hmmm? Mayks ya wundah....

Non sequitur said:

By "random event", do you mean when a particular atom will (start to) decay?

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Hello Non sequitur.

Yes.

Obliquinaut said:

This is interesting, albeit from 2009. I am unable to find anything about this particular hypothesis since about 2009-2011.

The other findings that solar neutrinos or seasonal variation on decay rates of some isotopes apparently has been shown to not be real (SOURCE). So I'll likely wait until more information is on the books about external factors affecting the rate of decay of radioisotopes.

The bigger questions would be:

1. IF it is shown that some other factor would effect radioactive decay rates how much would the factor affect the rates?

2. How extreme would the conditions have to be? (note in the article you posted they took the temperature down to 12degrees K...that's -438degF. Can you conceive of a situation where the rocks that are being dated via radioactive decay or the organic material was taken down to that low a temperature?

3. Why would multiple radioisotopes decay in such a way as to converge on a single date, that a change would impact them all the same way even if they don't have the same type of decay process?

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Hello Obliquinaut.

How about expanding your comments somewhat.

1. IF it is shown that some other factor would effect radioactive decay rates how much would the factor affect the rates?

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1. If it is shown that some other factor(s) or combinations of factors, for example, variations in pressure, temperature and radiation considered together. Affect the rates of radioactive decay, then what is the change in this rate over time?

klutedavid said:

Hello Obliquinaut.

How about expanding your comments somewhat.

1. If it is shown that some other factor(s) or combinations of factors, for example, variations in pressure, temperature and radiation considered together. Affect the rates of radioactive decay, then what is the change in this rate over time?

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Such conditions do not significantly change the rate of radioactive decay

klutedavid said:

Hello Non sequitur.

Yes.

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So, what evidence is there for (knowing) when radioactive decay starts?

pshun2404 said:

Yes and no method alone is 100% reliable. As Gem said on the first page, reliability is really only considered valid when after a number of these tests are performed (a variety) AND there is a correlation, should we surmise a plausible date to be at all accurate.

Even the standard mantra that radioactive decay has been proven to be constant is not accurate. Scientists at MIT and other reputable institutions, having put the mantra (once accepted as scientific fact) to the test, have discovered this is INCORRECT and in fact, environmental influences DO effect the rate of decay.,

"In the last few years...a number of new results have threatened to overturn this picture. Various groups have shown that the rate of alpha, beta, and electron capture decays all depend on temperature and whether they are placed in an insulating or a conducting material. That’s exciting because it raises the possibility of treating radioactive waste products. But it also raises a problem for particle physicists whose entire standard model assumes that decay rates cannot be influenced by external factors."

Do Nuclear Decay Rates Depend on Temperature?

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First, the measured changes in radioactive half-lives are between 0.7% and 6%. To reduce the age of the Earth, and of the Moon and meteorites, to 10,000 years you would need a decrease in the half-lives, or an increase in the decay rates, by factors of about 100,000. Second, as Obliquinaut points out, these changes in the half-lives occur at a temperature of 12 Kelvin, far below any temperature that could possibly occur on the Earth's surface or in the crust.

Obliquinaut said:

. How extreme would the conditions have to be? (note in the article you posted they took the temperature down to 12degrees K...that's -438degF. Can you conceive of a situation where the rocks that are being dated via radioactive decay or the organic material was taken down to that low a temperature?

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Astrophile said:

First, the measured changes in radioactive half-lives are between 0.7% and 6%. To reduce the age of the Earth, and of the Moon and meteorites, to 10,000 years you would need a decrease in the half-lives, or an increase in the decay rates, by factors of about 100,000. Second, as Obliquinaut points out, these changes in the half-lives occur at a temperature of 12 Kelvin, far below any temperature that could possibly occur on the Earth's surface or in the crust.

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No doubt the earth is NOT 10,000 years old. The age of the earth did not enter into the point I made. But let's say only a variance of 1% occurs under certain conditions but they continue or vary further back and forth within a period of 100,000 years (short in evolutionary time scales)...and then later in another 100,000 year period...and so on. What looks like 600,000 years or a million in the now by the standard accepted (which is consistency) may be very different.

pshun2404 said:

No doubt the earth is NOT 10,000 years old. The age of the earth did not enter into the point I made. But let's say only a variance of 1% occurs under certain conditions but they continue or vary further back and forth within a period of 100,000 years (short in evolutionary time scales)...and then later in another 100,000 year period...and so on. What looks like 600,000 years or a million in the now by the standard accepted (which is consistency) may be very different.

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I don't understand the point that you are making. Can you present the calculation that shows that a change of 1% in the radioactive half-life can vitiate a time measurement of a million years?

If the half-life oscillated with an amplitude of 1% about its mean value with a period of 100,000 years, it wouldn't make any significant change to radiometric ages of millions or billions of years. If, on the other hand, the half-life increased or decreased exponentially by 1% in 100,000 years, it would double or halve in about 7 million years, and that would vitiate ages of tens of millions of years or more. However, if you want to make your case, you must present evidence for the occurrence of such long-term changes in radioactive half-lives.

Subduction Zone said:

Such conditions do not significantly change the rate of radioactive decay

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Hello SZ.

How do you know that any given combination will not later decay rates?

klutedavid said:

Hello SZ.

How do you know that any given combination will not later decay rates?

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You have it backwards. These claims have been tested. They were found not to make a difference. At this point the burden of proof is upon you. Until you can support your beliefs the dates stand as being extremely reliable.

@klutedavid

If you see my post about the allende meteorite and decay within definite crystal latices, let me know what you think.

KomatiiteBIF said:

@klutedavid

If you see my post about the allende meteorite and decay within definite crystal latices, let me know what you think.

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Hello KomatiiteBIF.

Read it, interesting.

Astrophile said:

I don't understand the point that you are making. Can you present the calculation that shows that a change of 1% in the radioactive half-life can vitiate a time measurement of a million years?

If the half-life oscillated with an amplitude of 1% about its mean value with a period of 100,000 years, it wouldn't make any significant change to radiometric ages of millions or billions of years. If, on the other hand, the half-life increased or decreased exponentially by 1% in 100,000 years, it would double or halve in about 7 million years, and that would vitiate ages of tens of millions of years or more. However, if you want to make your case, you must present evidence for the occurrence of such long-term changes in radioactive half-lives.

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No one said it made changes to the number of years of time (as to vitiate a time measurement of x amount of years)...it varies the calculation of age of the object being measured, if indeed the rate of change is not constant, because rate of decay may have occurred faster during some time periods and slower during others based on the changing conditions that could effect the rate of decay in those respective periods.

PeterRobertson said:

I don't think you understand their (lack of) logic. Any bogus scientific-sounding inanity is enough in their minds to refute anything. If they find simple science too confusing, they always fall back to "god did it".

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Sadly, this has been my experience as well. Laziness.

pshun2404 said:

No one said it made changes to the number of years of time (as to vitiate a time measurement of x amount of years)...it varies the calculation of age of the object being measured, if indeed the rate of change is not constant, because rate of decay may have occurred faster during some time periods and slower during others based on the changing conditions that could effect the rate of decay in those respective periods.

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I still don't understand what you are claiming. First, so far as I can see, 'varies the calculation of age of the object being measured' means the same as 'vitiates a time measurement of x amount of years'.

Second, your link, Do Nuclear Decay Rates Depend on Temperature? - MIT Technology Review , provides evidence for small changes in radioactive half-lives at T = 12 K. Not only is this temperature is far below any temperature ever experienced on Earth, so that the observed changes are irrelevant to radiometric dating, but numerous experiments have shown that rates of alpha and beta decay remain constant under environmental conditions far more extreme than those experienced in the Earth's crust, and that even rates of electron capture vary only slightly (by 1.7% in beryllium-7, which is not used for radiometric dating, and less in heavier nuclei).

To quote G. Brent Dalrymple, in Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies (Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 59

These early experiments and subsequent ones, involving extremes of temperature, pressure, chemical state, and electrical and magnetic fields, have uniformly failed to induce any detectable changes in the decay rates of a wide variety of radioactive nuclides that decay by alpha or beta decay. These observations are in accord with modern theory, which predicts that changes in alpha and beta decay rates, although possible, should be much less than 0.01%.

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Finally, if, as you suggest, the decay rates oscillate with small amplitudes about a mean value on a time-scale of 100,000 years, the effect of these oscillations will cancel out over time-scales of millions of years, so that for such time-scales one can use the average half-life of the nuclide. Also, the small-amplitude variations (~1%) that you are proposing should introduce only small errors (a few percent) into ages of hundreds of thousands of years.

I should be interested to read your comments on this post, particularly if you can explain your hypothesis in more detail and can give quantitative estimates for the age errors introduced by the proposed changes in decay rates.

Astrophile said:

I still don't understand what you are claiming. First, so far as I can see, 'varies the calculation of age of the object being measured' means the same as 'vitiates a time measurement of x amount of years'.

Second, your link, Do Nuclear Decay Rates Depend on Temperature? - MIT Technology Review , provides evidence for small changes in radioactive half-lives at T = 12 K. Not only is this temperature is far below any temperature ever experienced on Earth, so that the observed changes are irrelevant to radiometric dating, but numerous experiments have shown that rates of alpha and beta decay remain constant under environmental conditions far more extreme than those experienced in the Earth's crust, and that even rates of electron capture vary only slightly (by 1.7% in beryllium-7, which is not used for radiometric dating, and less in heavier nuclei).

To quote G. Brent Dalrymple, in Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies (Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 59

Finally, if, as you suggest, the decay rates oscillate with small amplitudes about a mean value on a time-scale of 100,000 years, the effect of these oscillations will cancel out over time-scales of millions of years, so that for such time-scales one can use the average half-life of the nuclide. Also, the small-amplitude variations (~1%) that you are proposing should introduce only small errors (a few percent) into ages of hundreds of thousands of years.

I should be interested to read your comments on this post, particularly if you can explain your hypothesis in more detail and can give quantitative estimates for the age errors introduced by the proposed changes in decay rates.

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I still don't understand what you are claiming. First, so far as I can see, 'varies the calculation of age of the object being measured' means the same as 'vitiates a time measurement of x amount of years'.

That is because you are stuck on your already accepted position. It is quite different actually...the former says the age of the item being dated can be somewhat skewed because of this unknown factor (a varied rate of decay) and the latter says the measurement of actual years is vitiated. So one last time I will try to see if you are able to reason this point (and I am not claiming it is true as the constant rate of decay camp would insist on). I do not expect for you to agree but if you are a rational person (which I believe you are) you should at least be capable of grasping it (my 15 year old grandson got it first time). So then...

Let us say from 800,000 years ago to 700,000 years ago (a time period which is not vitiated by what I am about to explain) because of factors unknown to us so much later, that the rate of decay was hindered or sped up (during the un-vitiated period of time of 100,000 years or 1,000,000 years).

IF (a huge word) this occurred, THEN determining the age of the object being dated would be misled when a constancy is assumed. If the rate of decay was much faster during this time, the object would appear to have aged more, thus leading to the conclusion it is older than it really is. Likewise IF the rate of decay was hindered by such conditions it would appear to be younger than it is.

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The MIT paper says "Various groups have shown that the rate of alpha, beta, and electron capture decays all depend on temperature and whether they are placed in an insulating or a conducting material. That’s exciting because it raises the possibility of treating radioactive waste products. But it also raises a problem for particle physicists whose entire standard model assumes that decay rates cannot be influenced by external factors."

This makes me wonder, would the rate of decay remain consistent with the constancy model near to the earth's core? In the Vacuum of space? In the Sun? On the event horizon of a Black Hole? I certainly do not think so...but I could be incorrect so will not assume a dogmatic position.

The work being done exploring this, questioning conditions that may effect the rate of decay (like the MIT paper I referenced) is not "too old" (unless you are only about 25), but it asks valid questions the answers to which indicate a different, more complete, view (this is a good thing in science not a bad thing).

Even if the changes they imply are only slight, if they happened many times, or continued in this slight variance over great periods of evolutionary time (variance compounded upon a former norm), it indicates the measurement of artifacts, environment, and even bones, by such means is open to question.

One example they cited showed that a certain element when surrounded by copper at 12 degrees Kelvin demonstrated a 6% variance in the rate of decay. Over 1,000,000 years this would indicate a variance in the "constant rate" conclusion of possibly 60,000 years either way. Now say this occurred 30 times in a 50,000,000 year alleged time frame? Think about it? That would mean the conclusion of an age could be off by 1.8 million years!

pshun2404 said:

One example they cited showed that a certain element when surrounded by copper at 12 degrees Kelvin demonstrated a 6% variance in the rate of decay. Over 1,000,000 years this would indicate a variance in the "constant rate" conclusion of possibly 60,000 years either way. Now say this occurred 30 times in a 50,000,000 year alleged time frame? Think about it? That would mean the conclusion of an age could be off by 1.8 million years!

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So if you find a spot on Earth that is fifty million years old, and has been at a temperature of 12 K or -438 degrees Fahrenheit for most of that time it could be off by 1.8 million years. How does that minor error help creationists? And you do know that the coldest temperature ever measured on Earth was -128.6 Fahrenheit? Burying the sample does no good since there is a heat flow from the center of the Earth outwards. You will only increase the temperature by burying it.

Subduction Zone said:

So if you find a spot on Earth that is fifty million years old, and has been at a temperature of 12 K or -438 degrees Fahrenheit for most of that time it could be off by 1.8 million years. How does that minor error help creationists? And you do know that the coldest temperature ever measured on Earth was -128.6 Fahrenheit? Burying the sample does no good since there is a heat flow from the center of the Earth outwards. You will only increase the temperature by burying it.

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Hello SZ.

I thought the assumption was that the rate of radioactive decay was not influenced by external criteria?

klutedavid said:

Hello SZ.

I thought the assumption was that the rate of radioactive decay was not influenced by external criteria?

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No, the "assumption" is that those rates are not significantly affected under conditions found on the Earth and near the Earth's surface. By the way, anything that is not in the mantle or deeper is "near the Earth's surface". And that has been shown to be true.