The Fossil Record
- Thread starter bob b
- Start date
Hello Bob?
Has anyone ever used any other method to cross-check their conclusions regarding these layers that was not circular to the fossils themselves?
I'm thinking something like:
radiocarbon dating
rubidium-strontium
samarium-neodymium
potassium-argon
argon-argon
helium
uranium-uranium
uranium-thorium
uranium-lead
lead-lead
rhenium-osmium
optically stimulated luminescence dating
iodine-xenon
fission track dating
?
Has anyone ever used any other method to cross-check their conclusions regarding these layers that was not circular to the fossils themselves?
I'm thinking something like:
radiocarbon dating
rubidium-strontium
samarium-neodymium
potassium-argon
argon-argon
helium
uranium-uranium
uranium-thorium
uranium-lead
lead-lead
rhenium-osmium
optically stimulated luminescence dating
iodine-xenon
fission track dating
?
fool said:
Most of these methods are based on radiometrics, which as you know can not be used to directly date sedimentary layers (which being water lain - sedimentary, are basically mud).
Another factor is that it is rare to date the same rock sample (non-sedimentary) using more than two methods, and some of the most popular methods consistently give different answers, although not by that much (only a few dozen million years). Overall, it is my feeling that there is a basic underlying phenomenon which is affecting all radiometric methods and is the reason they all give such great ages.
It is also common to discard a date as "discordant" if it conflicts with index fossil derived evidence or would result in giving a layer a date inconsistent with "well established" dates of layers above and below. This is logical because it would be more likely that the date of such a layer would fall between the layers above and below it. Although it is reasonable to do this it does raise doubts in the minds of some skeptics whether the methods themselves are as foolproof as some would claim or whether there are other phenomena at work that are yet to be discovered.
I will search for a quotation I recently saw which gives an explanation why lava flows consistently show a pattern of young ages on top and older ages the farther down one goes when talking about flows which occurred at different periods of time. Of course it is well known that flows witnessed by humans frequently date as millions of years old, and this phenomenon is the key to understanding why one can be fooled into thinking that some lava formations look like they consist of a series of flows which occurred at intervals measuring millions of years.
The quotation I had in mind regarding lava flows is contained in a book I am currently reading. As soon as I scan in the quote I will post it.
In the meantime here is a reference to another potential piece of evidence that there may be other factors involved in radiometric dating that are causing millions of years to be concluded despite the fact that the real ages are in thousands of years. There are many other similar cases where layers assumed to be millions of years old contain organic material which show C14 dates, meaning that they theoretically should not be datable by C14 because all C14 would disappear in only 100,000 years at the outside.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i2/dating.asp
Unless all of these findings can somehow be explained away one would conclude that there may be unknown phenomena causing the millions of years methods to mistakenly show such great ages.
Incidently, it used to be common to do C14 tests on samples from ancient coal beds and find that there was still residual C-14, when of course there shouldn't be any if they are ancient. This is why it is rare these days for geologists to bother using C14 to date coal samples, because they know from experience they are likely to get "bogus" results (only creationists still date coal samples).
In the meantime here is a reference to another potential piece of evidence that there may be other factors involved in radiometric dating that are causing millions of years to be concluded despite the fact that the real ages are in thousands of years. There are many other similar cases where layers assumed to be millions of years old contain organic material which show C14 dates, meaning that they theoretically should not be datable by C14 because all C14 would disappear in only 100,000 years at the outside.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i2/dating.asp
Unless all of these findings can somehow be explained away one would conclude that there may be unknown phenomena causing the millions of years methods to mistakenly show such great ages.
Incidently, it used to be common to do C14 tests on samples from ancient coal beds and find that there was still residual C-14, when of course there shouldn't be any if they are ancient. This is why it is rare these days for geologists to bother using C14 to date coal samples, because they know from experience they are likely to get "bogus" results (only creationists still date coal samples).
`Love. said:
In my opinion, the so called fossil record proving things are gazillions of years old is a joke. They do not prove evolution. It does, however (in my opinion), give evidence of a worldwide flood. Evolutionists, though won't accept anything that upsets their theory.
http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=13
http://www.exchangedlife.com/skeptic/missing.htm
This verse describes evolutionists very well:
Ro 1:22
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Mr Jack
New member
bob b said:
The limit to c14 radiodating is around 30,000 years. This is because beyond this age the signal has degraded to a level at which it cannot be detected above random noise inherent in the technique. Anyone familiar with the technique would know this and know that any date reading above 30,000 cannot be relied on, and should be read as "unknown" age, they would also realise that this does not show that the age is in fact this young but simply that there isn't enough c14 left in the sample to make a valid reading.
The author of this peice clearly does not understand this point.
One Eyed Jack
New member
Mr Jack
New member
One Eyed Jack said:
That depends on the method used. The method used in the link has an upper limit of around 30,000 years, more modern methods (AMS) can reach further. Footnote 3 of the article linked specifies the method that was used as "done in the traditional way, not by the newer AMS method"
Chris Stasson said:
- from here
Mr Jack has provided a reasonable explanation for the particular case I sited. I will shortly provide additional cases for consideration. Perhaps we will find some not so easily explained.
In the meantime here are some additional points about the Grand Canyon for everyone's consideration.
------------
Gaps: The gaps (in geologic ages) are much larger than Schmidt (a skeptic of short ages) admits; one gap is 10 million, another 60 million, and another 100 million. Above the Great Unconformity is a gap of over a billion years, with no soil between it and the overlying sedimentary layers. These gaps give no evidence of large passages of time between the one below and the one above, suggesting the gaps are fictional: no long ages did elapse. The ages claimed for the layers come not from the onsite observations, but from the a priori belief that they must be fitted into a pre-existing construct, a model constructed and later Darwinized in England: the Geologic Column.
Flat contacts: The contacts between many layers are knife-edge thin and straight for hundreds of square miles, with no evidence of erosion between.
Flat layers: The “generally accepted notions” expect us to believe that the Colorado Plateau rose and sank above and below sea level repeatedly, yet kept the layers flat and undisturbed, a preposterous notion.
Gravity: The Grand Canyon traverses the Kaibab Plateau, a mile higher in elevation than the river upstream. Clearly, rivers do not flow over mountains. Something caused the canyon to scour through this region after a catastrophic period of sheet erosion and rapid downcutting.
Source of material: secular geologists don’t know where all the sedimentary material came from. Some have speculated that it was transported somehow over long distances, from as far as Appalachia (09/15/2003). On the other hand, a flood could have scoured and pulverized great quantities of lime mud and sand, and deposited it rapidly underwater. The characteristic layers could represent material brought in from different directions as the currents changed. (This could also imply that the similarities to Appalachian sediments indicate that similar processes were occurring there also).
Fossils: One layer of the Redwall Limestone contains billions of fossil nautiloids, apparently buried in one day over a vast area covering 5,700 square miles (12/24/2002). Other fossils common in the canyon are broken and jumbled, indicating they were not buried in situ, but were transported for great distances by powerful currents and quickly buried in sediment.
No evolution: Squirrels on the north rim are subspecies of those on the south rim, with smooth gradations of varieties in between (CRS). They differ mainly in fur color. If these species were geographically isolated for at least five million years, why did they not evolve further apart? In that same length of time, evolutionists claim that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors.
No evolution II: Investigations of organisms inhabiting the forests of Shiva Temple, a forested butte isolated from the north rim, found no differences between species on the rim, even though they, too, should have been geographically isolated for millions of years. (CRS.)
Downstream: no large river-delta deposits can be found downstream that would be expected if the Colorado River carved the canyon over a long time.
Upstream: large basins that could have held enough water to carve the canyon by a dam breach can be discerned upstream. Also, portions of the canyon (Marble Canyon, inner gorge) are convincing secular geologists that it was carved quickly (see 07/22/2002) entry).
Tectonics: faults intersect the canyon all the way from top to bottom at multiple points, but not part way up. This indicates the layers were deposited rapidly, then faulted together as units.
Folding: The layers fold together as if they were still soft and unconsolidated at the time. Some folds, such as in Carbon Canyon, show more than 90° fold with no evidence of cracking or crumbling.
Volcanos: Volcanic dikes and cones poke up through all the layers from bottom to top, but not part way up, casting doubt that millions of years transpired during sedimentation.
Fluting: The inner gorge rocks are only fluted at river level, indicating the river has not been cutting downward through the igneous rocks for long.
Sheet erosion: Vast quantities of rock above the canyon were swept away by sheet erosion before the canyon itself was carved. Evidence for this can be seen at Cedar Mountain and other buttes which protrude above the canyon, displaying remnants of the thousands of vertical feet of sediments that had been swept away before the downcutting of the canyon began.
Sand Dunes, Not: The Coconino Sandstone, long claimed to be sand dunes turned to rock, are too fine-grained to be aeolian (wind-blown) sands, and cover too a vast an area (much of the Southwest: 100,000 square miles, with a volume 10,000 cubic miles) for this scenario to be plausible. The crossbedding could have been laid down as sand waves by deep ocean currents. The fossil trackways could have been made in shallow water and would have had to be buried suddenly to be preserved. All other layers in the canyon are indisputably water-deposited. To believe the Coconino was wind-deposited, the entire region would have had to be lifted above sea level without cracking or folding, yet the contact with the water-deposited Hermit Shale below it is flat and smooth. This indicates that deposition of the Coconino in the Grand Canyon began immediately after the Hermit formation, without 10 million years between them.
Monsoons: a type of 3-D crossbedding called hummocky cross-stratification, visible in numerous places in the canyon, gives evidence of gigantic cyclonic storms on scales larger than anything observed today.
Sapping: The Redwall shows evidence of sapping (rock fall occasioned by springs weakening the rock above). The large amphitheater-shaped alcoves characteristic of the Redwall suggest that the layers were still soft and unconsolidated and impregnated with water when they formed.
Dam Break Redux: Large lava dams that formed in the lower canyon are known to have backed up the Colorado River into a huge lake since the canyon formed, yet broke and catastrophically drained quickly, perhaps multiple times. Why not suggest the same mechanism for formation of the canyon itself? In recent years, this idea – first proposed by creationists – has become popular among secular geologists (05/31/2002). Why have they not given the creationists credit?
Lava Dates: Radioactive dates from the lowest lavas in the canyon (underneath all the sedimentary layers) show up “younger” than those on the top at Vulcan’s Throne, indicating that radioactive dating methods that yield millions of years cannot be trusted. Another falsification is that different radiometric methods applied within the same formation yield widely divergent dates. In addition, carbon-14 has been found in coal seams around the Grand Canyon. Since the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, none should remain if the coal were really millions of years old, as claimed.
(For more detail on these evidences, see Tom Vail’s book, ICR’s Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, and Walt Brown’s analysis.)
-----------
Interesting list. I wonder if all these factors have resonable long-age explanations. Of course there is an advantage in assuming long ages, becaue as we all know given enough time anything can happen!!! Can't it?
In the meantime here are some additional points about the Grand Canyon for everyone's consideration.
------------
Gaps: The gaps (in geologic ages) are much larger than Schmidt (a skeptic of short ages) admits; one gap is 10 million, another 60 million, and another 100 million. Above the Great Unconformity is a gap of over a billion years, with no soil between it and the overlying sedimentary layers. These gaps give no evidence of large passages of time between the one below and the one above, suggesting the gaps are fictional: no long ages did elapse. The ages claimed for the layers come not from the onsite observations, but from the a priori belief that they must be fitted into a pre-existing construct, a model constructed and later Darwinized in England: the Geologic Column.
Flat contacts: The contacts between many layers are knife-edge thin and straight for hundreds of square miles, with no evidence of erosion between.
Flat layers: The “generally accepted notions” expect us to believe that the Colorado Plateau rose and sank above and below sea level repeatedly, yet kept the layers flat and undisturbed, a preposterous notion.
Gravity: The Grand Canyon traverses the Kaibab Plateau, a mile higher in elevation than the river upstream. Clearly, rivers do not flow over mountains. Something caused the canyon to scour through this region after a catastrophic period of sheet erosion and rapid downcutting.
Source of material: secular geologists don’t know where all the sedimentary material came from. Some have speculated that it was transported somehow over long distances, from as far as Appalachia (09/15/2003). On the other hand, a flood could have scoured and pulverized great quantities of lime mud and sand, and deposited it rapidly underwater. The characteristic layers could represent material brought in from different directions as the currents changed. (This could also imply that the similarities to Appalachian sediments indicate that similar processes were occurring there also).
Fossils: One layer of the Redwall Limestone contains billions of fossil nautiloids, apparently buried in one day over a vast area covering 5,700 square miles (12/24/2002). Other fossils common in the canyon are broken and jumbled, indicating they were not buried in situ, but were transported for great distances by powerful currents and quickly buried in sediment.
No evolution: Squirrels on the north rim are subspecies of those on the south rim, with smooth gradations of varieties in between (CRS). They differ mainly in fur color. If these species were geographically isolated for at least five million years, why did they not evolve further apart? In that same length of time, evolutionists claim that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors.
No evolution II: Investigations of organisms inhabiting the forests of Shiva Temple, a forested butte isolated from the north rim, found no differences between species on the rim, even though they, too, should have been geographically isolated for millions of years. (CRS.)
Downstream: no large river-delta deposits can be found downstream that would be expected if the Colorado River carved the canyon over a long time.
Upstream: large basins that could have held enough water to carve the canyon by a dam breach can be discerned upstream. Also, portions of the canyon (Marble Canyon, inner gorge) are convincing secular geologists that it was carved quickly (see 07/22/2002) entry).
Tectonics: faults intersect the canyon all the way from top to bottom at multiple points, but not part way up. This indicates the layers were deposited rapidly, then faulted together as units.
Folding: The layers fold together as if they were still soft and unconsolidated at the time. Some folds, such as in Carbon Canyon, show more than 90° fold with no evidence of cracking or crumbling.
Volcanos: Volcanic dikes and cones poke up through all the layers from bottom to top, but not part way up, casting doubt that millions of years transpired during sedimentation.
Fluting: The inner gorge rocks are only fluted at river level, indicating the river has not been cutting downward through the igneous rocks for long.
Sheet erosion: Vast quantities of rock above the canyon were swept away by sheet erosion before the canyon itself was carved. Evidence for this can be seen at Cedar Mountain and other buttes which protrude above the canyon, displaying remnants of the thousands of vertical feet of sediments that had been swept away before the downcutting of the canyon began.
Sand Dunes, Not: The Coconino Sandstone, long claimed to be sand dunes turned to rock, are too fine-grained to be aeolian (wind-blown) sands, and cover too a vast an area (much of the Southwest: 100,000 square miles, with a volume 10,000 cubic miles) for this scenario to be plausible. The crossbedding could have been laid down as sand waves by deep ocean currents. The fossil trackways could have been made in shallow water and would have had to be buried suddenly to be preserved. All other layers in the canyon are indisputably water-deposited. To believe the Coconino was wind-deposited, the entire region would have had to be lifted above sea level without cracking or folding, yet the contact with the water-deposited Hermit Shale below it is flat and smooth. This indicates that deposition of the Coconino in the Grand Canyon began immediately after the Hermit formation, without 10 million years between them.
Monsoons: a type of 3-D crossbedding called hummocky cross-stratification, visible in numerous places in the canyon, gives evidence of gigantic cyclonic storms on scales larger than anything observed today.
Sapping: The Redwall shows evidence of sapping (rock fall occasioned by springs weakening the rock above). The large amphitheater-shaped alcoves characteristic of the Redwall suggest that the layers were still soft and unconsolidated and impregnated with water when they formed.
Dam Break Redux: Large lava dams that formed in the lower canyon are known to have backed up the Colorado River into a huge lake since the canyon formed, yet broke and catastrophically drained quickly, perhaps multiple times. Why not suggest the same mechanism for formation of the canyon itself? In recent years, this idea – first proposed by creationists – has become popular among secular geologists (05/31/2002). Why have they not given the creationists credit?
Lava Dates: Radioactive dates from the lowest lavas in the canyon (underneath all the sedimentary layers) show up “younger” than those on the top at Vulcan’s Throne, indicating that radioactive dating methods that yield millions of years cannot be trusted. Another falsification is that different radiometric methods applied within the same formation yield widely divergent dates. In addition, carbon-14 has been found in coal seams around the Grand Canyon. Since the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, none should remain if the coal were really millions of years old, as claimed.
(For more detail on these evidences, see Tom Vail’s book, ICR’s Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, and Walt Brown’s analysis.)
-----------
Interesting list. I wonder if all these factors have resonable long-age explanations. Of course there is an advantage in assuming long ages, becaue as we all know given enough time anything can happen!!! Can't it?
One Eyed Jack
New member
Who is Chris Stasson?
One Eyed Jack
New member
Mr Jack said:
You can't seriously expect me to take a post someone made on a message board as an authoritative cite.
I've tried, and I haven't been able to. Perhaps you could?
Mr Jack said:
Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C14_dating
This article will probably be updated sometime in the future to include the uncertainty in the level of cosmic rays reaching the upper layers of the atmosphere, which in turn is affected by the strength of the shielding effect due to the magnetic field of the Earth (which is known to have declined 10% over the past 150 years).
Of course tree rings can be used in an attempt to compensate for such variables and in fact people have worked out calibration tables which of necessity must assume that mixing in the atmosphere evens out the c-14 concentration around the world over short timespans.
Nevertheless the method is probably useful to date organic material that is less than several thousand years old, even though it is probably not as accurate as thought even a few years ago.
Last edited:
One Eyed Jack
New member
I'm looking for something that specifically mentions 30,000 years as the maximum age using the GPC method of radiocarbon dating. I've never heard that before, and if it's true, I'd like to confirm it.