[Radiocarbon dating]
The further you go back in time, the less reliable
carbon dating techniques become.
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Geologists assume that the lead trapped in crystals used
to be uranium that decayed into lead over millions of years.
This would make the earth older then the universe.
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You cannot conclusively determine the age of igneous rocks without knowing the exact chemical makeup of these rocks when they originally formed.
There are many avenues that collectively point to the same direction with respect to Earth's dating.
Many ways of cross checking a validating the age of a formation.
Among these means, I'll briefly present a few:
One example was posted here:
Old Earth Geology
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Averages change depending on where you are on the planet, but often you get tectonic plate movement between maybe 2-5 cm per year.
If we measure from the center of the atlantic to the east coast US, you get near 300,000,000 cm. Divided by 2 cm per year and you get 150 million years, which just so happens to be pretty close to the age at which east coast mesozoic rocks are dated (see my palisades comment above). And this is just a rough estimate that involved me pulling up the measuring tool on google earth.
people can try to criticize radioactive dating all they want, but the evidence is compelling. So yes, devonian is devonian, but that 400 million years comes with specific support. It isnt just a random arbitrary number. It is relatively dated, in ways which correlates with absolute dating, fossil succession dating and further relative dating.
And this is how the geologic timescale has come to exist. Its a combination between superposition, the law of inclusions, and lateral continuity, along with chemistry and physics used to absolute date it. Uniformitarian geology is a summation of correlating dating among various independent fields of research.
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Which is to say that, one means of corroborating radiometric dating, is to simply pull out a tape measure and divide total distance of travel by the modern rates of tectonic motion.
Another means of corroborating radiometric dates is by using samples from other localities of the same bed (even samples from the other side of the planet of the same bed), and by using numerous independent methods regarding various different isotopes in various different samples:
Why do you feel a NEED for theistic evolution?
Radiometric Dating Does Work! | National Center for Science Education
There are a few tables in the above link that note the following:
1. Dates that corroborate one another.
2. Corroborating dates collected from various samples (even samples from all around the world of the same layers such as the K-T boundary)
3. Corroborating dates from various samples all around the world, via use of varying methods (see the K-T tectites table 2, note use of Ar/Ar, K/Ar, Rb/Sr, U/Pb).
4. Note consistency in results from various teams looking at various samples from various parts of the world, using various methods and machines, all showing the same results. This is something scientists have, that creation research doesn't.
Another means of corroborating radioactive dates, is merely by investigating the isotopes themselves and how their structure exists within a rock:
The popular Allende meteorite for example has daughter isotope locked into a definite crystal lattice of surrounding mineral. More specifically there is decayed aluminum to magnesium entrapped in anorthite. Meaning that the meteorite originally formed with aluminum within it, and decayed to magnesium at a later date. The decay of aluminum having a half life of 730,000 years means that the complete absence of aluminum and presence of magnesium in the meteorite today, suggests the passage of millions of years. No daughter material was added nor removed later than the meteorites formation as observed in the definite crystal lattice of the anorthite. Rather, the parent element formed in conjunction with it's surrounding lattice and later decayed in-situ, almost like how a spy might infiltrate a conference by walking into open doors (parent joins the rock during formation), only to later remove their disguise (decay), while inside the building of closed doors (the definite crystal lattice). Whereas if it had decayed beforehand, it would not have fit into the lattice (much like a spy would be rejected from the conference if he didn't have on his disguise). Meaning that radioactive dating again confirms an ancient earth.
But the posts above then leads to another point worth understanding.
When it comes to index fossils, an index fossil is only as good as the relative dating conducted prior to it.
Three things make index fossils, abundance, geographical expanse, and a refined temporal position in the stratigraphic column (ideally isolated within single periods or less).
The last one is important because it suggests that index fossils in reality are dependent upon relative dating of rocks.
Meaning that index fossils and their use are ultimately based on superposition, cross cutting relations, the law of inclusions, original horizontality and things of the like.
And if anyone really has a problem with an index fossil, the simple solution is to use relative dating to demonstrate that it isn't temporally refined.
And these are very simple and fundamental concepts that nobody is in a position to dispute. Older rocks are on the bottom, younger on the top.
And note that rocks are also typically laterally continuous, as discussed early as a product of oceanic transgressive and regressive sequences, which means that some rocks cover hundreds of miles, even if a river has eroded part of it away, or even if rocks above or below it are absent in some places. Meaning that as long as someone has a 5th grade education and can do connect the dot puzzles, they can also observe the geologic column and associated faunal succession.
Let's see how the pictures come out.
The above just points out that there are many ways of corroborating dating methods. And none of the above includes the other dating methods that conclude an old earth, fission track dating, electron spin resonance dating, ice core dating, tree ring dating, varve dating, luminescence dating, among other methods of corroboration. Some say that perhaps multiple varves could form in a single year, but when you have 5 million varves, young earthers enter a strange dimension where they are trying to explain how one giant flood could lay down 5 million repeating thin-thick sequences (perhaps thousands per day?), all in the shape of a geographically radial lake that just so happens to only contain lacustrine fauna (the young earth creationist denial could not be more extreme).
Old Earth Geology Part 3 (Green River Formation)
And in order to effectively deny radiometric dating and the faunal succession, a person basically has to deny literally all of physics and chemistry, geology, paleontology, biology and even geography. And this isnt an exaggeration. I digress.