Lake Suigetsu, the Flood and Objects of Known Age

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I thought I would just bump this thread since it provides so many great examples of dad's spitting fantasy to give actual explanations of the data.

F.B.

 

[MarkT]

The question for this thread is whether any believer in a recent global flood that covered the entire earth at the same time about 5,000 years ago can explain the data in the OP and the data linked in post 10 and those presented in post 20. using "flood geology". It appears not.

Hard to say without seeing the lake, the algae growing, the currents, the rivers flowing into the lake. My first thought was that the water flowing into the lake was pretty heavy in sediments. That would suggest the waters of the lake are turbulent and there are strong currents which would carry material out into the lake. A strong storm would deposit sediments that were already algae laden from previous years on top of more recent layers. Dark clay would settle all year round, I would think. I don't know why they say it settles, "for the rest of the year" as if it stops settling when the algae blooms and then begins to settle when the algae dies.

I guess they chose to take the samples from the middle of the lake where it would be less turbulent but still, there seems to be quite alot of sediment being deposited. And leaves and branches would more likely end up in the sediments near the shore. Finding leaves and branches out in the middle of the lake suggests they were carried there by underwater currents along with sediments from shore which of course would be heavily algae laden as well.

I don't know. The evidence is unconvincing so far.

 

[MarkT]

A strong storm would stir up the bottom near shore.

Wave and current action would carry algae and other sediments in suspension out into the middle of the lake and the sediments would drop to the bottom out there. Of course because they fall at different rates, you would get a layer of algae, which is lighter, falling on top of a layer of clay which is heavier and gets to the bottom faster.

I don't think these varves can represent annual events. It's more likely they would represent weather patterns or meteorological events.

Any time you stir up the bottom you should get a layer of algae on top of a layer of clay. A strong storm would destroy the varves near shore and it would create varves out in the middle of the lake.

I would think this method of dating would be unreliable to say the least.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Hard to say without seeing the lake, the algae growing, the currents, the rivers flowing into the lake. My first thought was that the water flowing into the lake was pretty heavy in sediments. That would suggest the waters of the lake are turbulent and there are strong currents which would carry material out into the lake.

These are thin layers of very fine clay so the lake is not "heavy in sediments". If the waters were really turbulet material would stay suspended and alternating layers wouldn't form. The only water inlet to Lake Suigetsu is a narrow channel connecting it to Lake Mikata so I don't see where the turbitity you are invoking could come from in the first place.

A strong storm would deposit sediments that were already algae laden from previous years on top of more recent layers. Dark clay would settle all year round, I would think. I don't know why they say it settles, "for the rest of the year" as if it stops settling when the algae blooms and then begins to settle when the algae dies.

It settles all year but the algae is not settling all year, thus annual layers form. This process is seen quite clearly in Lake Suigetsu today and in many others lakes.

I guess they chose to take the samples from the middle of the lake where it would be less turbulent but still, there seems to be quite alot of sediment being deposited. And leaves and branches would more likely end up in the sediments near the shore. Finding leaves and branches out in the middle of the lake suggests they were carried there by underwater currents along with sediments from shore which of course would be heavily algae laden as well.

According to the paper the sediments were well laminated over the nearly the entire core. There is no indication of the turbulent effects you claim.

I don't know. The evidence is unconvincing so far.

What about the OP do you not find "convincing"? Here is picture of the varved sediments from Glenn Morton's Page on the subject.

They show fairly uniform layers with no evidence of disturbance by storms. Of course the other problem for YEC is the correlation with tree ring and coral chronologies which would not happen for alternating lamina that were somehow deposited by storms and not annual formations.

The Frumious Bandersnatch

 

[MarkT]

These are thin layers of very fine clay so the lake is not "heavy in sediments". If the waters were really turbulet material would stay suspended and alternating layers wouldn't form. The only water inlet to Lake Suigetsu is a narrow channel connecting it to Lake Mikata so I don't see where the turbitity you are invoking could come from in the first place.

Whatever.

I would test my hypothesis before jumping to conclusions. I would create a false lake bottom and leave it there for a hundred years and see how many 'layers' formed after 50 and a hundred years.

 

[MarkT]

They show fairly uniform layers with no evidence of disturbance by storms. Of course the other problem for YEC is the correlation with tree ring and coral chronologies which would not happen for alternating lamina that were somehow deposited by storms and not annual formations.

You wouldn't see the evidence of a storm in the layers.

Storms churn up the material that already exists on the bottom near the shore. The material is carried out to the middle of the lake where it is deposited.

I don't know what you mean by 'correlation'. What you need is 'calibration'. You need to calibrate your dating method to a known age. I'm not saying there isn't a correlation between depth and age. If something is buried at depth, it is probably older than something which is buried closer to the surface. There may be a correlation between tree rings and age. So what?

I'm not even convinced C14 works. It assumes the atmospheric radiocarbon concentration is a constant over time. I don't know whether plants that feed on decaying organic material wouldn't absorb more or less C14 depending on the condition of the soil they are growing in. I don't know whether the concentration of C14 in the ground is the same as it is in the atmosphere or whether it's the same everywhere or whether this would make a difference. Maybe wood or whatever is buried, absorbs C14 while it is buried.

It occurs to me that the Egyptian mummies and the wood they use for calibration were never buried so they would more likely contain C14 in the amounts same as we find in the atmosphere.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I'm not even convinced C14 works. It assumes the atmospheric radiocarbon concentration is a constant over time. I don't know whether plants that feed on decaying organic material wouldn't absorb more or less C14 depending on the condition of the soil they are growing in. I don't know whether the concentration of C14 in the ground is the same as it is in the atmosphere or whether it's the same everywhere or whether this would make a difference. Maybe wood or whatever is buried, absorbs C14 while it is buried.

do you know how your car works? on a real low level, how the explosive wave front moves through the cylinder?
how about how your computer communicates to the internet? do you understand how TCP/IP works?
how about your own brain? understand how dendrites are attracted or repulsed from their potential contact points on another neuron?

It assumes the atmospheric radiocarbon concentration is a constant over time.
no it doesn't that is what the dendrochronology calibration curves do.

I don't know whether plants that feed on decaying organic material wouldn't absorb more or less C14 depending on the condition of the soil they are growing in.
where does a majority of plant C come from? the soil or the atomsphere? how do you know?

Maybe wood or whatever is buried, absorbs C14 while it is buried.
you can test this conjecture and look carefully at the physical and chemical basis of C14 dating. are your ideals driving your towards study of the issues or a committment to something without studying even it.

the fundamental question is one of personal epistemology. how do you know what you know? how do you know you know what you know? who do you trust to supply you with reliable information? why are they reliable? where do you go to get reliable information? when you don't know something and want to know about it, what do you do next?

The only reason you distrust C14 dating is that you have a prior overriding committment to something else you judge more reliable than the sources of C14 dating. What is it?
the source is other people telling you that the Scriptures tell them that the world is less than 10Ky old. You trust their reliability more than any source for C14 data and information.

But what i find really curious is that this does not drive most YECists towards a study of the issues. They are content to snipe at science and distrust what they can not understand. rather than investigate it. they seem to neither study the theological issues nor the scientific. curiously more YECists i've met are apologetics interested, not study.

you know what happens when people look carefully at how their cars work, how TCP/IP works? how their brains works? they learn something new. and in learning they learn to trust and at the same time distrust their sources.

What seems to happen with YECists is that they never learn to trust science while continuing to rely on it. They never seem to look carefully enough at the sources of their YECist ideals and learn to distrust them. They are lying to you. study the issues and find out how.

the most important thing is not to let these questions die out in your mind, but to pursue them, to study and learn the issues, not to be content with any accepted wisdom until you make it your own knowledge.

study tree rings, look at the lake varve data, struggle with it. wrestle with the science. learn to trust and distrust it's sources. but study it for yourself. your postings evidence that you do not understand the issues. go fix that.

 

[MarkT]

It settles all year but the algae is not settling all year, thus annual layers form.

Rings would be forming all year round, I'm saying, whenever a storm or something stirs up the bottom of the lake. The bottom is algae laden from previous years. Clay and algae would separate out into layers.

Look at the photo. You don't see clear layers. Some are faint and barely visible. Some are more visible than others. That would suggest some were formed from preexisting algae laden material and some were formed when the concentration of algae was greater. I'm thinking you might want to count just the most visible layers.

 

[MarkT]

no it doesn't that is what the dendrochronology calibration curves do.

Of course it does.

Libby and his team intially tested the radiocarbon method on samples from prehistoric Egypt. They chose samples whose age could be independently determined. A sample of acacia wood from the tomb of the pharoah Zoser (or Djoser; 3rd Dynasty, ca. 2700-2600 BC) was obtained and dated. Libby reasoned that since the half-life of C14 was 5568 years, they should obtain a C14 concentration of about 50% that which was found in living wood (see Libby, 1949 for further details). The results they obtained indicated this was the case. Other analyses were conducted on samples of known age wood (dendrochronologically aged). Again, the fit was within the value predicted at ±10%. The tests suggested that the half-life they had measured was accurate, and, quite reasonably, suggested further that atmospheric radiocarbon concentration had remained constant throughout the recent past.

Just because they got a concentration of 50% they expected, they reasoned the atmosphereric radiocarbon concentration had remained constant throughout the past.

It doesn't mean it is or it was constant. The concentration of C14 in the atmosphere fluctuates. They can only calibrate to 10,000 years.

 

[MarkT]

you can test this conjecture and look carefully at the physical and chemical basis of C14 dating. are your ideals driving your towards study of the issues or a committment to something without studying even it.

I would if I could but I would bury the thing for a hundred years or longer in different kinds of soil to see what really happens.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Of course it does.

Libby and his team intially tested the radiocarbon method on samples from prehistoric Egypt. They chose samples whose age could be independently determined. A sample of acacia wood from the tomb of the pharoah Zoser (or Djoser; 3rd Dynasty, ca. 2700-2600 BC) was obtained and dated. Libby reasoned that since the half-life of C14 was 5568 years, they should obtain a C14 concentration of about 50% that which was found in living wood (see Libby, 1949 for further details). The results they obtained indicated this was the case. Other analyses were conducted on samples of known age wood (dendrochronologically aged). Again, the fit was within the value predicted at ±10%. The tests suggested that the half-life they had measured was accurate, and, quite reasonably, suggested further that atmospheric radiocarbon concentration had remained constant throughout the recent past.

First, cite your sources:
http://www.c14dating.com/int.html
Secondly, read the whole articles, first for meaning and the big picture and the second time for details. Look just a few paragraphs down from your quote

In the late 1950's and early 1960's, researchers measuring the radioactivity of known age tree rings found fluctuations in C14 concentration up to a maximum of ±5% over the last 1500 years. In addition to long term fluctuations, smaller 'wiggles' were identified by the Dutch scholar Hessel de Vries (1958). This suggested there were temporal fluctuations in C14 concentration which would neccessitate the calibration of radiocarbon dates to other historically aged material.

This article goes into great detail about why and how they use dendrochronology to recalibrate the raw C14 data for the fluctuations in upper atmosphere N12-->C14 production over time. although their link to calibration is 404.

Just because they got a concentration of 50% they expected, they reasoned the atmosphereric radiocarbon concentration had remained constant throughout the past.

It doesn't mean it is or it was constant. The concentration of C14 in the atmosphere fluctuates. They can only calibrate to 10,000 years.

even 10Kya is sufficient to deny a recent, ie less than 10K, YECist-type creation event.

the fluctuations happen. the C14 dendrochronology recalibration curves fixes it. btw, the raw data is too young.....

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I would if I could but I would bury the thing for a hundred years or longer in different kinds of soil to see what really happens.

I would test my hypothesis before jumping to conclusions. I would create a false lake bottom and leave it there for a hundred years and see how many 'layers' formed after 50 and a hundred years.

it is preferable to design experiments that obtain useful data in your lifetime.

cute aside:
http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/pitchdrop/pitchdrop.shtml

the pitch drop experiment

 

[MrGoodBytes]

cute aside:
http://www.physics.uq.edu.au/pitchdrop/pitchdrop.shtml

the pitch drop experiment

Neat. Reminds me of the stories about old church windows being thicker at the bottom than at the top, because the glass slides downwards over several centuries.

 

[MarkT]

the fundamental question is one of personal epistemology. how do you know what you know? how do you know you know what you know? who do you trust to supply you with reliable information? why are they reliable? where do you go to get reliable information? when you don't know something and want to know about it, what do you do next?

The only reason you distrust C14 dating is that you have a prior overriding committment to something else you judge more reliable than the sources of C14 dating. What is it?
the source is other people telling you that the Scriptures tell them that the world is less than 10Ky old. You trust their reliability more than any source for C14 data and information.

But what i find really curious is that this does not drive most YECists towards a study of the issues. They are content to snipe at science and distrust what they can not understand. rather than investigate it. they seem to neither study the theological issues nor the scientific. curiously more YECists i've met are apologetics interested, not study.

you know what happens when people look carefully at how their cars work, how TCP/IP works? how their brains works? they learn something new. and in learning they learn to trust and at the same time distrust their sources.

What seems to happen with YECists is that they never learn to trust science while continuing to rely on it. They never seem to look carefully enough at the sources of their YECist ideals and learn to distrust them. They are lying to you. study the issues and find out how.

the most important thing is not to let these questions die out in your mind, but to pursue them, to study and learn the issues, not to be content with any accepted wisdom until you make it your own knowledge.

study tree rings, look at the lake varve data, struggle with it. wrestle with the science. learn to trust and distrust it's sources. but study it for yourself. your postings evidence that you do not understand the issues. go fix that.

You're assuming all this but you're wrong Richard. You're wrong in the most absolute sense.

Science doesn't belong to anyone. Apparently the godless think science is their domain but that wasn't always the case. They think science proved their case.

While they are busy creating their own creation myths, we can study their methods and we can critisize their work. But not all scientists are godless and that's a good thing.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Neat. Reminds me of the stories about old church windows being thicker at the bottom than at the top, because the glass slides downwards over several centuries.

see:
http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/florin.html
for one example.
it is a neat quick study on urban legends and science.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

You're assuming all this but you're wrong Richard. You're wrong in the most absolute sense.

Science doesn't belong to anyone. Apparently the godless think science is their domain but that wasn't always the case. They think science proved their case.

While they are busy creating their own creation myths, we can study their methods and we can critisize their work. But not all scientists are godless and that's a good thing.

where did i say that science 'belongs' to anyone?

rather it appears that i argue to make science your's not as a possession but as a way of looking at the physical world. my whole argument is that people must be involved in their own epistemological and scientific studies. i have no idea how you get from this to "godless think science is their domain".

 

[MrGoodBytes]

see:
http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C01/C01Links/www.ualberta.ca/~bderksen/florin.html
for one example.
it is a neat quick study on urban legends and science.

Thanks for clearing that up. To my defense, I said "stories".

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Thanks for clearing that up. To my defense, I said "stories".

sorry, please don't take the link personally, i wasn't critizing you in any way. i think that the story of thicker at the bottom is a good short investigation in science and popular myth. i hit the issue myself, misthinking that some old panes of glass in my wifes ancestral homestead "had flowed". i appreciate how urban legends and science interact, especially in this era of rapid net communciation.

 

[MrGoodBytes]

sorry, please don't take the link personally, i wasn't critizing you in any way.

My thanks were sincere - after all, how am I supposed to learn without being corrected?

 

[Loudmouth]

I would if I could but I would bury the thing for a hundred years or longer in different kinds of soil to see what really happens.

Why not devise a hypothesis and test it?

What differences should we see between varves caused by turbulence and varves caused by annual cycles? What mechanism in turbulent waters allow the sorting of insect and leaf debris by tiny differences in 14C concentrations?