Session 2 – Radioactive decay Pt.2

In this session we will continue our discussion on the topic of radioactive decay

Last week we covered Carbon Dating, which is the most popular (to the public) dating method

Carbon dating was used to date living things (that had died), methods we look at now are used for lava flows, rocks/minerals and are where people

get the dates of billions of years from

In Australia, some wood was buried by a basalt lava flow, as can be seen from the charring. The

wood was: dated: by radiocarbon analysis at about 45,000 years old, but the basalt was “Dated” by

the K-Ar method at 45 million years.

Potassium-Argon Dating

This method is used to date when a lava flow cooled

from magma to rock

Doesn’t agree with C-Dating

How it works

Potassium decays to argon with a half life of roughly 1.2 billion years

Argon is a noble gas which means it doesn’t combine with other elements easily (like helium)

The dating method assumes that when the sample taken solidified from liquid magma, there

was no argon present

Look what Wikipedia says on the topic

”Argon is a gas that does not ordinarily combine with other elements. So, when a mineral forms —

whether from molten rock, or from substances dissolved in water — it will be initially argon-free, even if there is some argon in the liquid. However, if the mineral contains any potassium, then decay of the 40K isotope present will create fresh argon-

40, that will remain locked up in the mineral.”

Is that assumption true?

"The primary assumption upon which K-Ar model-age dating is based assumes zero 40Ar in the mineral phases of a

rock when it solidifies. This assumption has been shown to be faulty.”

(Dr. Sean D. Pitman, CEN Tech. J., Vol. 10, No. 3, p:342 1996)

It is now known that excess Argon is carried from the mantle up to the earth’s crust, which means it is equally likely that the argon we are measuring is a result of

that and not decay from potassium.

“Potassium and uranium, both common parent elements, are easily dissolved in water,

so could be leached out of rocks.” (Dr. Jonathan Sarfati (Ph.D Physical Chemistry)

Refuting evolution – page: 110)

“Twenty-seven samples yielded potassium-argon “model ages” ranging from 405.1+-10 to 2,574.2+-

73 million years.” (Dr. Andrew A. Snelling Earths Catastrophic past – Volume 2 – Page:841)

It doesn’t even always agree with itself

Mt. Etna basalt, Sicily (May 1964) 0.7±0.01 Ma

Hualalai basalt, Hawaii (AD 1800-1801) 1.6±0.16 Ma; 1.41±0.08 Ma

Mt. Etna basalt, Sicily (122 BC) 0.25±0.08 Ma

Mt. Etna basalt, Sicily (AD 1972) 0.35±0.14 Ma

Mt. Lassen plagioclase, California (AD 1915) 0.11±0.03 Ma

Akka Water Fall flow, Hawaii (Pleistocene) 32.3±7.2 Ma

Kilauea Iki basalt, Hawaii (AD 1959) 8.5±6.8 Ma

Mt. Stromboli, Italy, volcanic bomb (September 23, 1963) 2.4±2 Ma

The best evidence against potassium-argon dating is the fact that it can never work when we

know the date already!

Medicine Lake Highlands obsidian,

Glass Mountains, California (<500 years old) 12.6±4.5 Ma

Hualalai basalt, Hawaii (AD 1800-1801) 22.8±16.5 Ma

Rangitoto basalt, Auckland, NZ (<800 years old) 0.15±0.47 Ma

Alkali basalt plug, Benue, Nigeria (<30 Ma) 95 Ma

Olivine basalt, Nathan Hills, Victoria Land,

Antarctica (<0.3 Ma) 18.0±0.7 Ma

Anorthoclase in volcanic bomb, Mt Erebus,

Antarctica (1984) 0.64±0.03 Ma

Kilauea basalt, Hawaii (<200 years old) 21±8 Ma

Kilauea basalt, Hawaii (<1,000 years old) 42.9±4.2 Ma; 30.3±3.3 Ma

East Pacific Rise basalt (<1 Ma) 690±7 Ma

Seamount basalt, near East Pacific Rise (<2.5 Ma) 580±10 Ma; 700±150

Many other methods exist but function very similarly

Rubidium-Strontium

We will look at a few popular ones specifically, and then look at a problem that affects them all

Volcanic eruptions are given dates that are impossible: Example, in East Africa one lava flow

using this method gave a date of 773 million years – But we know it blew up in the past few thousand

years from historical record

Initial daughter products known?

Variations in the initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios for samples of young lava from a single volcano have been

found. Therefore, the assumption of a well-defined initial ratio for many suites of rock is difficult to defend, and yet this is a crucial assumption for

successful Rb-Sr isochron dating.

It has been shown that the samples can be contaminated by outside sources which cause the dates to look older. Both materials are also mobile

Neodymium-Samarium

Method has contradicted their own theory

Rocks from the Peninsula Ranges Batholith of southern California, which by their own methods should be 100 million years old, gave a Sm-Nd age

of 1.7 billion years.

The method also have the problem of the elements being mobile in some cases. Look what

Dr. Snelling has to say:

“A study of the Sm-Nd radioisotope systematic in minerals in two granites has shown that

hydrothermal fluids interacting with the host rocks, as the granites intrudes and crystallizes, are

capable of carrying Sm and Nd in the rocks over distances of at least 1 km.” - Dr. Andrew Snelling

Uranium-Thorium-lead

This is one of the most popular methods used today and is considered one of the most reliable

Quick quote to sum up problems:

“It has to be concluded, therefore, that U-Th-Pb “dating” involves many pitfalls, which are really

only surmounted by making further assumptions, and by dependence on uncertain cross-checks. Both U and Pb mobility undermine whole-rock

“Dating”, and Pb migration within, and loss from, individual mineral grains is so prevalent that

interpreting the resultant isotopic data is largely dependent upon the bias of the investigators to

produce the desired outcomes.”Earths Catastrophic past – Volume 2 – Page:833

Despite all this, if each method has so many problems unrelated at times to other methods,

how can they all agree?

“The Cardenas basalt flows yielded a potassium-argon “Isochron age” of only 516+-30 million years,

which is less than half of the rubidium-strontium “Isochron age” of 1,111+-81 million years, while the samarium-neodymium “Isochron age” of 1,588+-170 million years is more than three times the potassium-

argon “Isochron age” Earths Catastrophic past – Volume 2 – Page:841

They don’t

Eleven whole-rock samples yielded a K-Ar “isochron age” of 841.5+-164 million years, a Rb-Sr “Isochron age” of 1,055+-46 million years, a Pb-Pb “isochron

age” of 1,250+-130 million years.

“Even worse were two samples collected only 0.84 meters apart from the same outcrop. They yielded potassium-argon “model ages” of 1,205.3+-31 and

2,574.2 +-73 million years. Otherwise, these samples yielded a rubidium-strontium “isochron age” of 1,240+-

84 million years, a samarium-neodynium “isochron age” of 1,655+-40 million years, and a lead-lead

“isochron age” of 1,883+-53 million years.”

Some dates don’t make sense

Using radioactive dating methods, an age of 1.07 billion years was assigned to the oldest rocks and a date of 1.34 billion years to the youngest rock. The youngest rocks gave an age 270 million years older

than the oldest rocks!

Dr. Steve Austin (Geologist) took samples from different parts of the Grand Canyon and

had them dated

Questioning the rate of decay in history

There is evidence that the half life and rate of decay has been accelerated in the past

We know that half lives can change with some elements

lutetium-hafnium(176Lu-176Hf) system, At very high temperatures, part of the 176Lu decay to

176Hf goes into an isomeric state which has a half-life of only 3.68. This is 14 orders of magnitude

faster than the conventional 176Lu decay

“There is one survey of the scientific literature that refers to more than two dozen experiments where changes in decay rates were reported.”

Dr. Tas Walker

It has been demonstrated in the laboratory that under certain conditions the radioactive decay rate

can be accelerated a billion fold

Decay rates of some elements have been shown to vary with solar activity (and solar neutrinos),

chemical environment, seasons, and the effects of radioactive decay in deep magma are unknown

Evidence for accelerated decay

Radioactive decay generated heat, and if accelerated would melt (to some degree) the

environment around it

“Al-26 does not exist in nature today, except as generated by cosmic rays near the surface of bodies in space.

Minerals deep within meteorites have been found with evidence of having once contained Al-26. Those minerals

contain only the daughter Mg-26, not the other two stable kinds of magnesium, and they look as if they had

been locally melted by the heat of Al-26 decay.” (Dr. Russell Humphreys)

Evidence for accelerated decay

Explanations have been suggested to explain the H in the Zircon (and to discredit the idea presented)

Keep in mind though, this study (the dating) was not done by the creationists

The first objection claims the temperature in that region was cooler in the past. The warmer the

temperature the faster the helium escapes out of the zircon, because the warmer it gets the quicker the atoms move around. If you cool down the area that means the atoms would move slower and the

helium would not leak out as quickly.

This theory has two primary problems associated with it. First off the thermal (heat) history for the

area these zircons were taken from shows it would have been warmer (not cooler) in the past then it is today, this is due to volcanic history in the area.

Secondly, in order to account for all the helium that is in these zircons they would need to have

temperatures as low as liquid nitrogen (196 degrees Celsius.) There is no way that this area

could have been that cold in the past!

The second objection questions the measurements done by the laboratory. Inside of these zircon crystals 1-2% of the helium is not tightly bound to the crystal.

This means if you take it to the laboratory for measurements 1-2% of the helium will leak out of the zircon at a faster rate than the rest of the helium will.

Some people claim that when the laboratory made the measurements of how quick the helium leaks out

of the crystals they were only measuring this 1-2% that initially leaks out of the crystals very quickly, and

because they were measuring this 1-2% of rapidly leaking helium their measurements were incorrect.

The problem is the laboratory knows this happens, and they recommend that people ignore the initial

measurements, which the RATE team did.

The Third Objection claims that the helium was put into the zircon crystals in the recent past by

outside forces.

Dr. Humphrey’s, who lead this study on the RATE team, has addressed this issue (and all the others)

and said the following:

“If the helium in the zircons were “excess” and came from outside them, it would have had to

come through the biotite. As I pointed out on p. 9 of CRSQ 2004, the helium concentration in the

biotite is two hundred times lower than the concentration in the zircon. That means, according

to the laws of diffusion, that the helium is presently leaking out of the zircons into the biotite,

not the other way around.” (Dr. Russell Humphreys)

The theory that claims the helium came from an outside source says a volcano lava flow is

responsible for the helium. The secular scientists who originated this theory wants fluids (from

magma) to carry the helium into the granite rock, through the biotite, and into the zircon crystal.

He claims this happened in the recent past sometime between 100,000 years ago and

1,400,000 years ago. This scenario has some serious problems associate with it.

First off the helium would have escaped from the magma before it reached the zircons, which means

once the magma got there no helium would be available.

Secondly, the temperatures would have rose dramatically from this magma interacting with the

granite rock and zircon crystals

Even if it was possible for the magma to bring the helium into the zircon, it would raise the temperature dramatically causing it to

escape even quicker

Objection to accelerated radioactive decay?

Radioactive decay causes large amounts of heat to be released!

Theories have been presented that can accelerate decay without this happening

Solid Mantle turned liquid

Splitting it up between day 3 of creation and flood

Water during flood as cooling factor

Is there a scientific mechanism that could accelerate radioactive decay?

String theory

Adjusting the strong nuclear force can

allowed for accelerated decay

Dr. Eugene Chaffin (Theoretical

physicist)

• Large initial concentrations of daughter isotopes in the mantle which were mixed into the crust on

Day 3 of Creation week, and

• Large concentrations of daughter elements produced during Creation week which were later

mixed into the crust by the Genesis Flood.

More simple answers exist to explain a lot of the radioactive decay elements that we see

Humphreys theory has mechanisms to explain how the decay could have happened

Memory Verse

Hebrews 1:10 And: “You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,

And the heavens are the work of Your hands.