"How
Old is the Earth?"
Response to the Old-Earth Arguments of
Theologian
Desmond Ford
The
Genesis Debate
August 2008
Ford
(thick chalk deposits):
Is
it quite certain that the earth is old as geologists declare? Yes, it is quite
sure. Even the Geoscience Research Institute of SDAs now admits this (after
denials of decades). The proofs run into scores, of which perhaps five percent
are questionable. For example, under the South Downs of England lie about 800
feet of chalk. These deposits are composed of tiny organisms, which sank to the
ocean floor after death, taking about 1,000 years to form one inch of chalk.
Think of the White Cliffs of Dover. Every microscopic fragment of it was once
living. The present color testifies that these cliffs were not the product of a
catastrophic flood.
Pitman:
I'm
not quite sure where Ford gets the idea that Geoscience Research Institute (GRI)
actively promotes the theory of an old geologic column? I don't think GRI
is nearly that "progressive". I personally know several who
currently work at or closely with the GRI who strongly support a young age model
for at least a large portion of the geologic column. Timothy Standish, Leonard
Brand, and Arthur Chadwick, to name a few well-credentialed well-published
scientists, strongly support the concept of a young age for much of the geologic
column and for life on this Earth. Leonard Brand, in particular, published
a fairly recent paper explaining his views on the global nature of the Noachian
Flood and of the recent origin for much of the geologic column as a result of
the Flood and its aftermath (see Link).
Arthur Chadwick's unique work on paleocurrents is also quite interesting in this
regard (Link).
As
far as chalk deposits are concerned, thick chalk deposits, such as those as
dramatic as the White Cliffs of Dover, are actually evidence of catastrophe on a
massive scale - not the slow uniformitarian interpretation so common in
mainstream literature.
These
white chalk deposits are a very pure type of limestone composed almost entirely
of calcium carbonate, which originally belonged to trillions upon trillions of
microorganisms to include foraminifera, calcareous algae, coccoliths, and
rhabdoliths. While living, the
habitat of these creatures is in the upper 100 to 200 meters of the open ocean.
When they die, their calcium-rich shells settle down on the bottom of the ocean
floor up to 5 km below the surface of the ocean.
Below this depth there is little accumulation due to the dissolving of
the calcium carbonate into the ocean water before it reaches the bottom.
That is why tall underwater mountain peaks have a "snow-capped"
look to them. When they die, it is
estimated that it takes up to 10 days for the microscopic bodies to settle onto
the bottom of the ocean floor with an overall average accumulation rate of 1 to
8 cm per thousand years.
Now,
given that the White Cliffs of Dover are about 400 meters thick, it would seem
to be a matter of simple math to establish the hypothesis that this much chalk
would take at least 10,000 years to produce just one meter of chalk - - or over
4 million years to produce a layer 400 meters thick!
In fact, mainstream geologists suggest that it took around 10 million
years to form the Cliffs of Dover. Obviously, that's a very long time.
How then can the Cliffs of Dover really represent catastrophic conditions
and extremely rapid formation?
It
gets worse than this. Some
geologists have estimated that if all of the creatures that form the chalk beds
were living at the same time, they would cover the entire planet to a depth of
at least 45cm.1 It is argued that there wouldn't have been enough
energy from the sun to support such a biomass or enough carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere to enabled the production of all the calcium carbonate needed by that
many microorganisms.2
How
are these challenges answered by Young Earth Creationists (or Young Life
Creationists like myself)?
Well,
under certain conditions these microscopic creatures are able to mass-produce
themselves in truly enormous quantities - hundreds of thousands of times more
than usual. These masses of
microscopic life are called, "algal blooms".
Usually,
these blooms are associated with significantly increased nutrients that enrich
the water as the result of some sort of contamination/pollution event or
catastrophe or when the water becomes exceptionally warm.
Sometimes these blooms become so massive that they can be seen from outer
space (see illustration; Link).
These bloom conditions produce up to 10 million organisms per liter of
ocean water.6
Now,
consider that calculations that assume only 100 organisms per liter of ocean
water show that the entire thickness of the White Cliffs of Dover could be
produced within 1,000 years.3 What would a concentration 100,000
times as great due to this time span?
But
what about the sheer mass of chalk-type calcium carbonate produced?
All the limestone contained within the Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary
layers form around 17.5 million cubic meters of rock.
Not all of this is chalk, of course, but let's just assume that it is for
a minute. Some fairly simple calculations show that only 12.5 million square
kilometers of ocean area (only 2.5% of the Earth's surface) is needed to produce
17.5 million cubic kilometers of chalk within 1,700 years given a concentration
of only 100 organisms per liter.4 Again, given the nutrient-rich
bloom conditions described above, that certainly doesn't seem all that
overwhelming to the concept of a young geologic record - does it?
The
problem with anti-catastrophist arguments is that many of them assume that these
chalk
beds had to have been formed within the one year of the Noachian Flood.
That's not true at all. The
Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary layers likely followed the main flooding event
before the continents had been split apart and started forming large mountain
chains and ocean trenches. The ocean
basins immediately after the main catastrophe of the Noachian flood would have
been fairly shallow and filled with massive quantities of nutrients.
The microorganisms would have gone wild producing diatomaceous blooms
larger than can be imagined - large enough to bury and preserve very large
creatures, like articulated whales! How
does one bury a whale in chalk at a rate of a few centimeters per thousand
years?
In
this line, the fairly recent discoveries of fossil whales (Miocene/Pliocene) in
western Peru are quite interesting. Leonard Brand (Ph.D. in Paleobiology from
Cornell) comments, "In our survey of the area, we found the fossil remains
of more than 100 whales in an area of less than two square kilometers… What
was even more exciting was the well-preserved nature of the fossil remains. . .
Typically, when a whale dies at sea, the carcass falls to the bottom and becomes
the source of a rich ecosystem. Many species of sea life benefit from the
decaying remains at each stage of the process. Within four to six months, the
whale carcass has been mostly stripped down to the bones. At that point, other
species of organisms burrow both into the bones and the surrounding sediment.
Within a year or two, the whale bones show much evidence of these burrowing
animals." 5
So,
how did the whales in western Peru meet their end? "These whales were
incredibly well-preserved," Brand observes, "suggesting that they were
covered quickly." Brand found that the whale remains were blanketed by a
thick layer of diatomite (silica remains of diatoms). These tiny creatures,
known collectively as plankton together with dinoflagellates, are part of the
food source for whales. In modern times, diatomite normally accumulates on the
sea bottom at a rate of a few centimeters per thousand years. "We also
found beautifully preserved baleen," he adds. Baleen refers to the
filtering feather-like structures in the whale's mouth that are used to strain
out food (plankton) from the water. "Whales feed by gulping in water and
forcing it out through the baleen, trapping the tiny plankton." Baleen is
actually more akin to the human fingernail or toenail in its structure.
"The well-preserved baleen supports the theory of a quick burial to an even
greater extent." 5 Other similar though arguably less
dramatic discoveries have also been published in earlier papers.7
But
why did these whales (and other kinds of preserved creatures) die in the first
place? "There is more and more evidence that red tides--blooms of diatoms
and dinoflagellates--produce toxins which can kill large animals and fish,"
he says.5 These massive blooms were so large that they not only
killed the whales, but buried them in thick layers before any significant decay
could set in. If this find does not
prove the reality of rapid chalk deposition, I don't know what does?
The
very purity of these chalk beds should cause one to question the uniformitarian
paradigm. It is very hard to
imagine how the very high level of purity of calcium carbonate could have been
maintained over millions of years without the incorporation of significant
amounts of contaminate material? Rather,
given a period of relative calm following a series of shortly spaced massive
watery catastrophes on a global scale (as indicated by the Biblical account and
numerous extra-Biblical cultural legends of a Noachian Flood), the oceans would
have been both relatively warm and nutrient rich (from all of the killed,
buried, and floating organic material). Such
a situation would have produced massive algal blooms on a global scale such as
the world has never seen before or since.8
1.
Schadewald, R.J., 1982.
Six 'Flood' arguments creationists can’t answer. Creation/Evolution
IV:12–17 (p. 13).
2.
Morton, G.R., 1984. The
carbon problem. Creation Research Society Quarterly 20(4):212–219 (pp.
217–218).
3.
Roth, A.A., 1985. Are
millions of years required to produce biogenic sediments in the deep ocean? Origins
12(1):48–56.
4.
Woodmorappe, J., 1986.
The antediluvian biosphere and its capability of supplying the entire fossil
record. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism,
R. E. Walsh, C.L. Brooks and R.S. Crowell (eds), Creation Science Fellowship,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Vol. 2, pp. 205–218.
5.
Leonard Brand, Taphonomy of fossil whales in the
Miocene/Pliocene Pisco Fm., Peru, Dept. of Natural Sciences, Loma Linda
University, 2004 ( http://www.llu.edu/llu/grad/natsci/brand/whale.htm
)
6.
Seliger, H.H., Carpenter,
J.H., Loftus, M. and McElroy, W.D., 1970. Mechanisms for the accumulation or
high concentrations of dinoflagellates in a bioluminescent bay. Limnology and
Oceanography 15:234–245.
7.
(Reese, K.M. 1976. Workers find whale in diatomaceous earth
quarry. Chemical & Engineering News 54(42):40.).
8.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i1/chalk.asp
Ford:
Think
of the varves that run sometimes into millions in some
geographic locations, such as the Green River district in USA. Each varve (a
varve is a pair of distant layer of sediment) represents the climatic changes of
a single year . . .
Pitman:
Varves
are sedimentary layers generally interpreted as being laid down in a yearly
banding pattern with one varve being laid down once per year, like tree rings.
A
true varve consists of a couplet of summer silt and winter clay, a period that
is difficult to demonstrate. It
is thought that by counting the varves in a lakebed, one can determine a fairly
accurate age for that lakebed. Ancient dates are calculated for these lakebeds
using varves, sometimes into the millions of years based on varve estimates. In
the fall 1994 issue of Science Speaks, Don Stoner (1994) stated that the Green River
Formation of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming "contains more than four million
annual layers." He then says, "Obviously, this means that the lake
existed for millions of years before it disappeared."
This
is a great theory. It certainly sounds reasonable at first glance.
However, there are just a few problems with this theory. Multiple varves
are now known to form very rapidly in certain situations.
Buchheim
and Biaggi (1988) measured Green River Formation "varves" between two
volcanic tuff beds each two to three centimeters thick. Geologists
consider each tuff bed a synchronous layer, i.e., every point on that tuff bed
has the same age. The two tuff beds thus represent two different reference
times. If the laminations in between these two beds are annual layers, the same
number of layers should be present everywhere between the two beds. Buchheim and
Biaggi found the number of laminae between the tuff beds ranged from 1160 to
1568.
Lambert
and Hsà (1979) measured "varves" in Lake Walensee, Switzerland and
found up to five laminae deposited during one year. From 1811, which was a clear
marker point (because a newly built canal discharged into the lake), until 1971,
a period of 160 years, they found the number of laminae ranged between 300 and
360 instead of the expected one per year or 160.
Some
rather interesting experiments with varve formation have also been done. Julien,
Lan and Berthault (1994) experimentally produced laminations by slowly pouring
mixtures of sand, limestone and coal into a cylinder of still water. Using a
variety of materials, they found that laminae formed if there were differences
in size and density of the materials and that the thickness of the laminae
depended upon differences in grain size and density.
Fischer
and Roberts (1991) state, "In some cases the observer counting varves is
left in doubt as to which couplets are varves and which are subvarve units, a
matter that was handled in our image analysis varve counts by arbitrarily
counting only variations above the 30 micron level." In other words, they
arbitrarily chose 30 microns as the minimum thickness to be used for computer
analysis. However, many laminations are less than 30 microns thick. Also, many
of the "varves" consist of organic layers squeezed together with very
tiny carbonate laminae in between. There is no consistency in varve structure.
Geologists
have suggested other causes of lamination as potential contributors to varves,
including storm events, turbidites and glacial meltwater. Each one of these is
aperiodic, producing laminations with no relation to annual or other cyclic
processes. For example, turbidity currents from melting snow or heavy rain
produce extra couplets.
Our
investigations supported de Geer's first contention that sediment-laden
floodwaters could generate turbidity underflows to deposit varves, but threw
doubt on his second interpretation that varves or varve-like sediment are
necessarily annual. (Lambert and Hsa,
p. 454)
Turbidity
currents can mimic varves, especially at the end of the flow that is farthest
from the source or sediment. (Hambrey) Many supposed varves are multiple
turbidity current deposits and do not represent seasonal changes.
It
is very unfortunate from a sedimentological viewpoint that engineers describe
any rhythmically laminated fine-grained sediment as 'varved.' There is
increasing recognition that many sequences previously described as varves are
multiple turbidite sequences of graded silt to clay units...without any obvious
seasonal control on sedimentation. (Quigley, p. 151)
Turbidity
flows have the surprising ability to deposit silt and clay quickly in equal
thicknesses. Under normal conditions, silt usually settles in a few days and
clay can take years to settle.
As
both clay and silt fractions are transported to the site of deposition at the
same time, successive surge deposits are likely to have similar proportions of
silt and clay. In other words, thick silt layers will have thick clay layers,
and thin silt layers will have thin clay layers. (Smith, pp. 198-199)
Turbidity
flows are independent of season and can continuously deposit microlaminae
throughout the year, including the winter:
In
many cases where large ice lobes or glaciers sit or float in lakes, there is
year round delivery of sediments and turbidite activity occurs almost
continually resulting in graded laminae that are not true varves. (Quigley, p.
152)
How
many varve-like layers form from year to year becomes anyone's guess. Wood
(1947) describes peak river inflows after light rain that deposited three
varve-like couplets in two weeks. Just as we have seen in many situations, e.g.,
stalagmite and canyon formation, strata deposition, and fossilization, time is
not the essential factor for their development, although evolutionists insist
that such things took much time to form. While evolutionary catastrophists admit
rapid formation, they almost invariably propose long periods of tedium between
catastrophic events. (Ager)
Steve
Austin, who has done much field work at Mount St. Helens, documented in his new
book Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe
(see announcement on last page) that the volcano eruption produced 25 feet
of volcanic ash varve-like deposits from hurricane-velocity surging flows in
five hours.
-
To
summarize the above findings:
-
Controversy
exists as to the source material comprising varves as well as the mechanism
of their cyclic formation.
-
Lamination
counts in historically known sections have been demonstrated not to
correspond to elapsed years or counts are inconsistent.
-
There
is frequently uncertainty as to how many laminations constitute a varve and
the use of arbitrary minimum sizes may lead to erroneous conclusions.
-
There
are many nonseasonal mechanisms for producing laminations such as storms,
floods, turbidites, glacial meltwater and spontaneous segregation of
dissimilar materials. All of these causes of laminar deposits indicate that
varve-like laminations are a common effect of many nonseasonal processes.
-
Various
materials that decay rapidly over time, such a delicate leaves, have been
found extending through many "annual" varve layers (see above
photo).
For
references and additional information see Link.
Ford:
.
. . and a multitude of other features of earth give the same testimony as radiometric
dating.
Pitman:
The
problems with radiometric dating are legion.
It might not seem like it at first glance, but the whole process is
highly subjective. Many of the
methods do indeed "agree" with each other - but this is not an
objective agreement because they are calibrated against each other.
I go into the problems of calibration, 'tuning', and other problems with
various radiometric and other related dating techniques at:
As
just one example of how various dating methods do not
agree (and there are many), consider the topic of tektites.
Tektites
are thought to be produced when a meteor impacts the Earth.
When the massive impact creates a lot of heat, which melts the rocks
of the Earth and send them hurtling through the atmosphere at incredible
speed. As these fragments
travel through the atmosphere, they become superheated and malleable as they
melt to a red-hot glow, and are formed and shaped as they fly along.
It is thought that the date of the impact can be dated by using
various radiometric dating methods to date the tektites. For example,
Australian tektites (known as australites) show K-Ar and fission track ages
clustering around 700,000 years. The
problem is that their stratigraphic ages show a far different picture. 
Edmund
Gill, of the National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne, while working the Port
Campbell area of western Victoria uncovered 14 australite samples in situ
above the hardpan soil zone. This zone had been previously dated by the
radiocarbon method at seven locales, the oldest dating at only 7,300
radiocarbon years (Gill 1965). Charcoal from the same level as that
containing specimen 9 yielded a radiocarbon age of 5,700 years. The
possibility of transport from an older source area was investigated and
ruled out. Since the "Port Campbell australites include the best
preserved tektites in the world ... any movement of the australites that has
occurred ... has been gentle and has not covered a great distance"
(Gill 1965). Aboriginal implements have been discovered in association with
the australites. A fission-track age of 800,000 years and a K-Ar age of
610,000 years for these same australites unavoidably clashes with the
obvious stratigraphic and archaeological interpretation of just a few
thousand years.
"Hence,
geological evidence from the Australian mainland is at variance, both as
to infall frequency and age, with K-Ar and fission-track dating" (Lovering
et al. 1972). Commenting on the above findings by Lovering and his
associates, the editors of the book, Tektites, state that, "in
this paper they have built an incontrovertible case for the geologically
young age of australite arrival on earth" (Barnes and Barnes 1973, p.
214).
This
is problematic. The argument
that various radiometric dating methods agree with each other isn't
necessarily true. Here we have the K-Ar and fission track dating methods
agreeing with each other, but disagreeing dramatically with the radiocarbon
and historical dating methods. These
findings suggest that, at least as far as tektites are concerned, the
complete loss of 40Ar
(and therefore the resetting of the radiometric clock) may not be valid
(Clark et al. 1966). It has also been shown that different parts of the same
tektite have significantly different K-Ar ages (McDougall and Lovering,
1969). This finding suggests a
real disconnect when it comes to the reliability of at least two of the most
commonly used radiometric dating techniques.
In
short, it seems like fission track dating is tenuous a best - even when
given every benefit of the doubt. It
is just too subjective and too open to pitfalls in interpretation to be used
as any sort of independent measure of estimating elapsed time. (see Link)
Older,
Younger, Older, Younger . . .
Another
example that really builds confidence in radiometric dating is the assumed
age of the Grand Canyon. Originally, the Grand Canyon was thought to have
started to form some 70 million years ago as the Kaibab started its uplift
around that time. This opinion was popular in the early 1900s and
lasted for about 50 years or so (Link).
It was even supported by radiometric dating. However, the popular view
of the age of the Grand Canyon began to evolve downward over time and ended
up at around 5.5 million years by the 1970s or so.
This
view lasted until around 2002 when researchers from Arizona suggested that
catastrophic lava dam failures in the Grand Canyon would have significantly
reduced the time needed to carve it. They estimated that the age of at
least the western part of the Grand Canyon should be reduced from 5.5 Ma to
around 600,000 years. They even started calling the Grand Canyon a
"geologic infant" (Link)
(Link).
Then,
in 2007, a group of researchers (largely from Arizona and New Mexico)
published their work on argon-argon dating (40Ar/39Ar
dates) of the Grand Canyon. They argued that earlier 40K/40Ar
dates indicating that Grand Canyon had been carved to essentially
its present depth before 1.2 Ma, were significantly off base. Their
own calculated ages were all <723 ka, with age probability peaks at 606,
534, 348,192, and 102 ka (Link).
As low as 100,000 years? Wow, now that's a significant reduction!
This
view didn't last very long before being challenged by the research of
another group that decided, in 2008, to date the canyon with
another radioactive dating method (uranium - thorium). Using this
method on samples taken from near the bottom of the Canyon, these
researchers think they have "pushed back [the Grand Canyon's] assumed
origins by 40 million to 50 million years" and maybe by as much as 60
million years "to the time of the dinosaurs" (Link).
During
this same year (2008) a different group from New Mexico used a
"recently-improved technique [uranium-lead dating of calcium carbonate
precipitates] to date mineral deposits in cave formations in one layer
of the canyon's rock and arrived at the more ancient age of 16 million to 17
million years old" (Link).
What's
going on here? The assumed age of the Grand Canyon starts out old,
then becomes a "geologic infant" and then gets old again - all
depending upon which dating technique one decides to use? That's a
real confidence builder in the reliability of various dating techniques and
how well they "agree with each other" if you ask me. I mean,
the differences in these age estimates aren't just a little bit different.
They are orders of magnitude different!
In
this same line, the very same thing happened to Mather Gorge and
Holtwood Gorge in Pennsylvania. These gorges were
once thought to have eroded over the course of 180 million years based on
geochronological and radiometric age calculations. However, in 2004 research measuring
beryllium-10 levels (the measurement of beryllium-10 that builds up in
quartz when exposed to cosmic rays) done by Luke
J. Reusser, a geologist at the University of Vermont in Burlington, and
other colleagues, suggests that these gorges my be as young as 13,000 years
instead of 180 million years.
That is a difference of over four orders of magnitude!
Now
that's a real confidence builder in the reliability of radiometric dating if
you ask me! It seems like one could probably do better by just
guessing! Yet, mainstream scientists scoff at the idea that these
features, many of which show clear evidence of massive catastrophe involved
in their formation, could not have been formed within just a few thousand
years? - based on what? Can these scientists produce anything
significantly more reliable? Judging from their historical estimates,
it doesn't seem like they really have anything all that solid to go on.
Ford:
Do
not evolutionary scientists reason in a circle when they
date strata by the fossils and vice versa? George McCready Price, that good and
learned man, taught so. But he was wrong, as almost all SDA scientists now
admit. Radiometric dating and comparison of the sequence of strata in all
continents have made Price's views untenable.
Pitman:
Not
if the assumptions of radiometric and other forms of dating are themselves
largely subjective and often circular - and many of them are.
Outside of the problems with radiometric and other dating methods already
mentioned above, consider the following report of a conference in which
the whole concept of tuning was attacked by Richard Muller.
"Muller scored the most points at the meeting when he attacked a standard
technique, called tuning, that oceanographers use for dating layers in sediment
cores. The task of dating these strata is difficult because sediments may
accumulate more quickly during some eras and more slowly in others. To tell the
age of layers between known benchmarks, researchers often use the Milankovitch
orbital cycles to tune the sediment record: They assume that ice volume should
vary with the orbital cycles, then line up the wiggles in the sediment record
with ups and downs in the astronomical record.
"This whole tuning procedure, which is used extensively, has elements of
circular reasoning in it," says Muller. He argues that tuning can
artificially make the sediment record support the Milankovitch theory.
Muller's criticisms hit home with many researchers. "He scared the hell out
of them, and they deserved it," says Broecker."
Richard
Monastersky, "The Big Chill - Does dust drive Earth's ice ages?", Science
News, vol 152, October 4, 1997, pages 220-221. (http://www.muller.lbl.gov/pages/news%20reports/ScienceNews.htm)
See
also the related topic of Milankovitch Cycles and the Age of the Earth (Link).
Uranium-Lead
Dating
Also
consider the problems with Uranium-Lead dating - thought to be one of the most
reliable independent dating methods of all. This dating method has very
subjective elements to it. Consider a paper published in the October 2004
edition of the journal Geology - by Turner et al. The
authors in this paper dated the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary at a location in
Germany to 360.7 million years using uranium-lead dating applied to thirteen
zircon crystals. The zircons were subjected to air blasts, then heating
and soaking in acid solution for days to make as sure as possible that any
contaminants were removed. After all of this cleaning, only 5 of the 13
zircon dates were kept and published. Why where the results of the
majority of the zircons thrown out? Because, they "yielded impossibly
old dates" and were said to be "inherited" zircons that were
previously formed and then included in the younger magma during its formation
and subsequent ash production.
"On
the basis of 13 analyses (single zircons or zircon fragments), a younger
zircon generation of 5 analyses is distinguished from older zircon
generations (Table 1). The latter, obviously inherited [i.e., formed
in earlier periods], yielded 207Pb/206Pb ages of 444 to 2044 Ma (Table 1).
The abundance of Precambrian ages is a remarkable feature; note that no
inherited zircons were detected in the study of Claoué-Long et al.
(1992). The error ellipses of the older zircons are clearly separated
from a tight concordant cluster of the five youngest zircon analyses, which
yield a 206Pb/238U concordia age of 360.5 ± 0.8 Ma (Fig. 2A). This
age is interpreted as the crystallization age of the comagmatic zircon
population and thus the time of eruption of the ash."
Trapp
et al., “Numerical calibration of the Devonian-Carboniferous
boundary: Two new U-Pb isotope dilution-thermal ionization mass
spectrometry single-zircon ages from Hasselbachtal (Sauerland,
Germany),” Geology,
Vol. 32, No. 10, pp. 857–860, doi: 10.1130/G20644.1.
Plutonium-Uranium-Xenon
Dating
Another
example of selective use of data to meet preconceived notions is from 2004 paper
published by Turner et al in the journal Science. The
scientists discussed evidence for extinct plutonium-244 in Australian rocks
dated at 4.2 billion years old. Plutonium-244 has a half-life of 82
million years. The authors, Turner et al., begin by assuming Pu-244
was well mixed within the cloud that presumably formed the solar system.
Since the Australian rocks are assumed to be among the oldest on earth, they
wanted to determine the ratio of plutonium to uranium (Pu/U) for clues to the
early evolution of the earth. Xenon-136 would have been produced primarily
by the more rapidly-decaying plutonium-244 in the early years of the earth, then
the slower-decaying uranium-238 would gradually have predominated; but the ratio
is so low, .004 to .008, that U tends to overwhelm the contribution from Pu
unless the rocks are older than 3.8 billion years - according to the authors.
To
test their hypothesis the scientists extracted eight tiny zircon crystals, just
50-200 millionths of a meter in size, from rocks they claimed are up to 4.1 to
4.2 billion years old. Detecting xenon in such a small grain – a
quadrillionth of a cubic centimeter – is beyond the range of most instruments,
"comparable to blank levels and sensitivities of conventional noble gas
mass spectrometers" (i.e., the instrument would show no xenon at all).
So, Turner and his colleagues developed a more sensitive instrument - two orders
of magnitude more sensitive (i.e., 100 times more sensitive). Using this
new instrument, they found a few thousand atoms of xenon per zircon crystal.
They then measured the xenon isotope ratios from the eight zircons and graphed
their results. Only two of them fell on the expected Pu/U ratio
line expected from the age of the rocks, compared with ratios measured in
meteorites which presumably predate the formation of the earth.
The
other six were "discordant," or off from their expectations by 24% to
97%. The authors explained that, "This could be the result of
preferential loss of the earlier-formed Pu xenon or the result of chemical
fractionation of Pu and U during or before the formation of the zircons."
How can this be, since they say "Xe is at least as strongly retained as Pb"
in zircon crystals? Well, lead has also been found to leach out of
zircons, and these crystals have been through a long, wild ride: "Nevertheless,
Pb loss associated with metamictization is commonly observed in zircons, and,
given the antiquity and complex history of the ancient [sic] detrital zircons,
it is likely that loss of Xe will also have occurred in a portion of our
samples". This history could have included "diffusion or
recrystallization events" and other metamorphic processes. Most of
the loss would have been early on, when plutonium production of xenon dominated,
according to their model, so that explains why the ratio fell short of
expectations. "To be more definitive requires an additional
relationship between the time of Xe loss and the degree of loss," they
suggest.
Turner
et al., “Extinct 244Pu in Ancient Zircons,” Science,
Vol 306, Issue 5693, 89-91, 1 October 2004, [DOI: 10.1126/science.1101014].
Now,
I don't know about you, but all of this sounds quite subjective to me with
more than a few indirect assumptions being brought to bear on the final
calculations. Again, the majority of the measurements aren't even
accepted as being correct. Not quite a directly calculated non-biased
radiometric age. . . or so it seems to me.
Additional
information can be found at the following Link.
Ford:
"God spoke,
and it was. He commanded, and it stood fast," refers to the certainty of
his creative work, not its duration.
Pitman:
I suppose that is why God took the time to repeat
himself so often by describing his act of creating life on this planet "in
six days"? - - to include the
additional description of "evenings and mornings"?
I find it hard to imagine how one could describe literal days of creation
any more clearly if one wanted to? If
all God wanted to convey to us is the "certainty of his creative work",
why all the extra filler detail describing spans of time and other specifics of
his creative or miraculous activity that weren't quite accurate - not even close?
It seems to me that it would have been better to say nothing at all than
to say so specifically that he created "in six days" delineated even
more specifically by "evenings and mornings".
You see, in order to establish a firm basis for
belief in the certainty of God and his creative work, we must have some sort of
evidence of his activity that is actually testable and consistent with his own
claims of what he has done. Otherwise,
where is the basis for a reasonable belief in the very existence of God - much
less the certainty of his creative work?
Ford:
Other evidences
of the earth's great age, which are almost universally accepted by specialists
in the earth sciences include the following: The multitude of oil drills
in the U.S. alone testifies to the reliability of accepted geological data. A
fortune is regularly spent based on this research. There are literally hundreds
of places around the world where the same sequence of strata appear.
Pitman:
The
massive size of similar sedimentary layers covering major portions of continents
and sometimes the majority of the entire globe is actually more consistent with
catastrophic conditions acting over a very flat landmass.
Notice that these sedimentary layers are universally very flat relative
to each other. The world millions of years ago must have been a very very flat
place indeed. Notice also that there
is little erosion preserved between these flat layers.
The contact zones themselves are very flat as well.
Strange that such features should exist given the uniformitarian notions
of those proposing such long spans of time to explain these sedimentary layers.
http://www.detectingdesign.com/geologiccolumn.html
Ford:
Is
the geological column an established fact? It is, and has been so since 1849, by
which time correlations had been made between strata in England and European
countries.
Pitman:
Agreed.
The geologic column is a fact. The
question here is not if it exists, but what does it mean?
Does it support slow uniformitarian ideas or a more catastrophic
interpretation? As it turns out,
catastrophism is actually gaining some ground - even within mainstream science.
Consider the following statement of Robert Dott published in a
1982 edition of Geotimes:
"I
hope I have convinced you that the sedimentary record is largely a record of
episodic events rather than being uniformly continuous. My message is that
episodicity is the rule, not the exception. . . We need to shed those lingering
subconscious constraints of old uniformitarian thinking."
Dott,
Robert H., Presidential Address to the Society of Economic Paleontologists &
Mineralogists, Geotimes, p. 16, Nov.
1982
Even
in mainstream thinking, the huge amounts of elapsed time are no longer thought
to be recorded in the building of the layers themselves within the geologic
column. The majority of elapsed time
is thought to have passed by in-between the layers - for the most part.
This is a big step away from uniformitarian thinking and toward a notion
of some form of "punctuated equilibrium".
It isn't too much more of a leap to end up with a rapid shortly-spaced
sequence of massive catastrophic events to explain both the geologic and fossil
records.
Ford:
Think
of coral reefs, sometimes forty miles long and of great
height and thickness.
Pitman:
This
is a common argument, which is interesting to me since these supposed
"reef" formations aren't really reefs at all.
In other words, they do not represent in
situ growth and formation. Rather,
they are conglomerate deposits of fragments of coral and other materials into an
embankment of sorts. For example,
the Thornton Quarry 'reef', near Chicago, does not match any of the
characteristics of a modern reef. The
'core' of this reef shows no growth structures and is the wrong shape.
The angle of the reef is too steep, reef binding organisms are absent, a
solid foundation rock is absent, and the reef is riddled with fossil tar,
indicating rapid deposition, not slow growth.1
Also, investigations of assumed 'reefs' in Australia2
and Europe3 also reveal that they did not grow in situ, but were transported and dumped into place.
When
investigated with more than superficial interest, fossil reefs really do not pan
out as true reefs, but are depositional structures much more consistent with
catastrophic flood models than with slow uniformitarian notions of formation.
Rather than being a problem for catastrophic models for the geologic
column, these 'reefs' actually provide very good evidence for the catastrophic model.
1.
D’Armond,
D.B., Thornton Quarry deposits: a fossil coral reef or a catastrophic Flood
deposit? CRSQ 17(2):88–105, 1980.
2.
Roth, A.A., Origins:
Linking Science and Scripture, Review and Herald Publishing Association,
Hagerstown, Maryland, pp. 239–241, 1998.
3.
Scheven, J., The
Flood/post-Flood boundary in the fossil record; in: Walsh, R.E. (Ed.), Proceedings
of the 2nd International Conference on Creationism, Creation
Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pp. 247–266, 1990.
Ford:
The
oilfields of the Great Lakes area, Texas, and Alberta were originally beneath
the sea and the thousands of feet of sedimentary rock that piled up contain
multitudes of marine fossils. On top of these sedimentary deposits coral reefs
grew which ultimately because fossilized into limestone. Some of these are many
miles long and about a thousand feet thick and required many thousands of years
to develop. On top of these reefs are more layers of sediment upon beds of mud -
only after the sediments became rocks did coral edifices begin.
The Bahamas Banks are underwater mountains of sedimentary rock enormous in size
and containing what has been described as "one tremendous stack of fossil
material". These banks have steeply sloping sides, evidence that the
fossils grew in place and were not deposited from elsewhere. Millions of years
were required for these massive banks to grow.
