This was a question in a thread, that may have been locked a couple days ago (not keeping up too much), but I thought it should be answered. Others can put a more detailed answer if they want.
The answer is, we Don't know, but that doesn't mean anything bad.
Volcanic rock can be contaminated in a number of ways. One of the way is by human hands, either by poor handling of the rocks or by incorrectly choosing rocks that are known to have excess argon. Another way is through nature, as some rocks can contain excess argon (although I'm not completely sure the reasons for this excess.)
These are some of the reasons K/Ar aren't trusted for young dates.
But these problems can be fixed. By checking to make sure the person who took the samples followed good procedures and didn't take them from sources that are known to give errors. And by double checking any strange results with other dating methods such as Ar/Ar dating which has been known to either give good results for young samples or demonstrate that the K/Ar dating oddity was do to excess Argon.
So, the questions of whether these steps were followed, good sample taking and double checking, should be asked of anyone when they get strange results, including creationist sources.
The answer is, we Don't know, but that doesn't mean anything bad.
Volcanic rock can be contaminated in a number of ways. One of the way is by human hands, either by poor handling of the rocks or by incorrectly choosing rocks that are known to have excess argon. Another way is through nature, as some rocks can contain excess argon (although I'm not completely sure the reasons for this excess.)
These are some of the reasons K/Ar aren't trusted for young dates.
But these problems can be fixed. By checking to make sure the person who took the samples followed good procedures and didn't take them from sources that are known to give errors. And by double checking any strange results with other dating methods such as Ar/Ar dating which has been known to either give good results for young samples or demonstrate that the K/Ar dating oddity was do to excess Argon.
So, the questions of whether these steps were followed, good sample taking and double checking, should be asked of anyone when they get strange results, including creationist sources.
