850.357.6386
RadioMetric Dating
First let us begin by defining radiometric dating and how it works. It is actually a pretty straight forward process and not that hard once you understand the reasoning.
There are elements that are a little heavier than they are supposed to be because they have too many neutrons in their nucleus. These are called Isotopes. These are many times stable and have no effect on anything however sometimes the heavy isotopes can not hold themselves together because the electromagnetic, strong, and weak nuclear forces require a balance. In order to balance the nucleus the forces push and pull on protons and neutrons until a change occurs. This change can happen in various ways. One way this happens is a proton turns into a neutron or vice versa resulting in the nucleus becoming balanced and stable. This is known as Beta decay and is a medium and common type of decay.
There is also alpha decay which does a similar thing but instead of transmuting (turning a neutron into a proton and electron) a particle, the nucleus kicks out a group of particles two protons and two neutrons from the nucleus to balance the parent nucleus . This is a low energy and heavy radiation coming from larger elements such as uranium.
The parent nucleus, that is the original element that is unstable and decaying, is in a high energy state. This is just a sciencey way of saying it has too much energy like a 5 year old after eating a cheesecake, and has to get rid of some of it. This is done by gamma radiation and this is dangerous to humans. All of this is a tug of war between 3 separate quantum(very small yet enormously powerful) forces in the center of the atom.
Heavier isotopes like uranium will almost always decay through alpha decay and have long half lives while lighter isotopes like C14 will generally decay via beta decay and have shorter half lives. The reason for this is when you increase the number of particles in the nucleus you are also increasing the forces acting on those particles and reducing the difference between the overall forces conflicting enough to expel a particle. In billiards it is easier to disperse 3 balls than it is to disperse 15. The same principle applies here and so the heavier the element the longer it takes to decay generally speaking. Only when the balance is so unstable and lopsided do we have quick decay rates among heavier isotopes. These are not used for RMD (Radiometric Dating) as they are not found in a measurable quantity and many are not found naturally.
There are 3 kinds of isotopes. We make some in the lab and are not naturally occurring. These are not used for RMD. There are natural ones called primordial that were created with the earth. These are like Uranium. The last kind is created by high energy gamma rays striking the atom. C14 is an example of this. These are called Cosmogenic Isotopes.
Alpha Decay
Beta Decay
Radiometric dating is supposed to work like a nuclear clock. The idea is that over a certain amount of time a certain amount of decay will take place naturally and we can measure this in the lab (kind of). Thus over time if we start with X amount of the radioactive isotope which degrades into the daughter element (the element left over from the radioactive decay) we can measure each of these and see how much time has transpired and thus date the rock. This only works well with volcanic rock because the minerals and crystals involved are supposed to be formed at the same time that the rock is formed (that is the idea anyway). Sedimentary rock is formed by compressing minerals and crystals together to form a new rock. These minerals and crystals predate the rocks formation and therefore cannot be used as an accurate RMD sample. The idea of igneous rock being used is that all the minerals and crystals were formed at the time the magma was solidified at the surface and therefore can be used as an accurate RMD sample.
A more in-depth explanation can be found online from MIT and Stanford. Both have in depth online learning materials that will give you a strong grasp of the way RMD is supposed to work.
Question:
If geology says that sedimentary rock is only ground up igneous rock per the geologic cycle and sedimentary rock has only been compressed from particles of volcanic rock then why can we not date the entire sample and average the entire rock to find the age of the sedimentary rock? This should be possible but it is not.
UPDATE:
Since publishing this I have been contacted by no less than 3 geologist telling me I was incorrect.
The main problem they found is that we can indeed and sometimes do RMD sedimentary rock. In other words, I was correct in my assessment but wrong in my claim that it is not possible. But is this my claim?
No.
My claim is that RMD instruction material says we can not date sedimentary rock.
Thus, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks can't be radiometrically dated.
Although only igneous rocks can be radiometrically dated, ages of other rock types can be constrained by the ages of igneous rocks with which they are interbedded.
https://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/geol100/lectures/04.html#:~:text=Thus%2C%20sedimentary%20and%20metamorphic%20rocks,with%20which%20they%20are%20interbedded.
This is only one example among many that a simple search online will provide.
We can and do date sedimentary rock however in very specific cases and for very specific reasons and it does indeed only provide a date range of minimum to maximum rather than try to give a specific date with an error range.
Here we see a glaring example of two things.
First even PhD scientists get so very focused on the process that they miss the premise and can make errors by overlooking the consequences of the logic. I was confronted here and reprimanded by 2 geologists for being correct in my premise and logic concerning the RMD of sedimentary rock.
Second we have contradictory statements from instructional material even at the college and university level.
Ultimately these geologists have helped me a great deal in revealing that the claims in some instructional material is incorrect and showing me that sedimentary rock can indeed be used for RMD.
My thanks to each of you geologists for helping me clarify this question and showing me that my premise was correct. It is those that object to my publications that help me the most.
The Assumptions
The following are the assumptions science makes in RMD. These must be true in order for RMD to work properly. Here I will give the assumptions, the falsification of the assumption, and the consequences.
Closed Systems
"Every radioactive element will decay at a constant rate. The rate at which each element decays is its half-life
The rate of decay is specific to a particular radioactive element (see list of half life's of various radioactive elements).
When the substance containing a radioactive parent was first formed, there was no daughter element present. It is assumed that the daughter is derived solely from the decay of the radioactive parent. If daughter atoms were present that were not the result of the decay process the calculated date would be unreliable.
From the time when the substance containing radioactive elements first came into existence until the time that the material was analyzed and dated, the system had been closed; in other words there had been an infusion or removal of either parent or daughter atoms.
All daughter atoms contained within the radioactive substance were created by the radioactive decay of the corresponding parent atom. This is a repeat of the previous assumption that the system is a closed system."
This is taken from an online college in Baltimore County(CCBC) and is standard across radiometric courses.
"The accuracy of these dating techniques is dependent on the validity of a
number of assumptions. The most important of these include:
1. Since the time of its formation, the rock or mineral sample must have remained a closed system
2. The decay constant of the parent isotope must be known accurately and cannot have changed over time for any reason.
3. No atoms of the daughter isotope can be present in the rock at its time of formation (initial daughter).
Open system or “leaky” behavior, a violation of assumption 1, can occur due to weathering and alteration, or by heating, burial, and uplift of a rock subsequent to its formation. Elimination of these factors by careful sample selection is essential. Assumption 2 is thought to be operative within the Earth
system and therefore is never violated. Violations of assumption 3 are not uncommon and make accurate dating difficult, but not impossible."
from: Teacher resource National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Fossil Butte National Monument Kemmerer, Wyoming
https://www.nps.gov/fobu/learn/education/upload/Radiometric%20Dating%20Game.pdf
"An important assumption that we have to be able to make when using isotopic dating is that when the rock formed none of the daughter isotope was present (e.g., 40Ar in the case of the K-Ar method).
Earle, S. (2015). Physical Geology. Victoria, B.C.: BCcampus. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/geology/ Ch 8 Measuring geologic time
https://opentextbc.ca/geology/chapter/8-4-isotopic-dating-methods/
These are Open Systems
What of water? Surely water can not move through solid rock and distort the radiometric data can it? Sure it can and does.
" Consider granite, a rock with a very low permeability to water. If a cube of such rock, 1 kilometer on a side and without fractures, has a typical hydraulic pressure gradient along one axis of 10 meters per kilometer, then 30 billion liters of water will flow through the rock in only 10 million years. If the water picks up uranium from the rock to the extent of 5 parts per billion, which is only 5 milligrams per 1000 liters, then a total of150 kilograms of uranium will be transported out of the block."
https://fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00285784.pdf
IN this explanation of the Isochron methodology we find the inherent issue with radioisotope migration through rock in either the parent or daughter isotopes.
https://www.britannica.com/science/dating-geochronology/The-isochron-method
"Many radioactive dating methods are based on minute additions of daughter products to a rock or mineral in which a considerable amount of daughter-type isotopes already exists. These isotopes did not come from radioactive decay in the system but rather formed during the original creation of the elements. "
"Some studies have shown that rubidium is very mobile both in fluids that migrate through the rock as it cools and in fluids that are present as the rock undergoes chemical weathering. Similar studies have shown that the samarium-neodymium (Sm-Nd) parent-daughter pair is more resistant to secondary migration but that, in this instance, sufficient initial spread in the abundance of the parent isotope is difficult to achieve."
Where again the daughter isotope or element is known to exist in the formation of the rock and not the product of the radioactive decay, then we have the second issue of migration otherwise known as seepage or leakage.
To compound matters even further here we find that radioactive atoms can actually create radiogenic isotopes and distort other atoms in the same rock. The alpha decay isotopes are especially guilty of this.
The Treatise on Geochemistry Karl K. Turekian
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA 2003 Elsevier
"Of all the criteria necessary for the interpretation of dates as crystallization ages, the assumption of closed-system behavior is the most problematic. Many daughter isotopes and some important parent isotopes may be mobile during metamorphism, hydrothermal alteration, and deformation, and a surprising number of high-precision isotopic dates for samples from orogenic settings are demonstrably younger than the crystallization ages of the samples. Among the mechanisms potentially responsible for such open-system behavior are:
metamorphic “net-transfer” reactions that lead to the crystallization of new minerals or the elimination of others as a consequence of changes in temperature and pressure;
dynamic recrystallization of minerals as a consequence of deformation; and
metamorphic “exchange” reactions that lead to changes in the compositions of minerals but not their modal proportions, as a consequence of changes in pressure and temperature (Spear, 1993)."
A Natural Oil Seep
Consequences
Yes, they know they are open systems and try hard to account for this. The problem however is that if they are correct bout the age of the rock then there is no possible way they could account for the leakage or seepage or other interference. Consider that if Everest was at the bottom of the ocean several hundred million years ago and now is at the top of the world then over that amount of time how much seepage and leakage occurred through all those geologic changes, geologic events, and various pressures and weathering? To say that we can account for this is simply absurd. We have no idea how many events, how significant each event was, or any idea whatsoever of even the many various types of events. We do believe there were a great many events and many of them quite significant. We also know it is not a closed system.
C-14 Concentrations
"The radiocarbon dating method is based on certain assumptions on the global concentration of carbon 14 at any given time. One assumption is that the global levels of carbon 14 (also called radiocarbon) in the atmosphere has not changed over time. The other assumption is the corollary of the first; the biosphere has the same overall concentration of radiocarbon as the atmosphere due to equilibrium."
C-14 levels are not stable
Nuclear weapons testing brought about a reaction that simulated atmospheric production of carbon 14 in unnatural quantities. The huge thermal neutron flux produced by nuclear bombs reacted with nitrogen atoms present in the atmosphere to form carbon 14. The carbon 14 produced is what is known as bomb carbon or artificial radiocarbon.
According to literature, nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s have nearly doubled the atmospheric carbon 14 content as measured in around 1965. The level of bomb carbon was about 100% above normal levels between 1963 and 1965. The level of bomb carbon in the northern hemisphere reached a peak in 1963, and in the southern hemisphere around 1965.
Burning of large quantities of fossil fuels like coal, referred to as the Suess effect, had significantly lowered the radiocarbon concentration of the atmospheric carbon reservoir. In contrast, nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s dramatically increased the level of carbon 14 in the atmosphere. The phenomenon is often referred to as the bomb effect.
The current eruption wiggle match date of 232 ± 5 years CE is amongst the oldest. We present evidence that the older, vent-proximal 14C ages were biased by magmatic CO2 degassed from groundwater, and that the Taupo eruption occurred decades to two centuries after 232 CE. Our reinterpretation implies that ages for other proximally-dated, unobserved, eruptions may also be too old.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-06357-0
A large and sudden increase in radiocarbon (14C) around AD 773 are documented in coral skeletons from the South China Sea. The 14C increased by ~ 15‰ during winter and remain elevated for more than 4 months, then increased and dropped down within two months, forming a spike of 45‰ high in late spring, followed by two smaller spikes. The 14C anomalies coincide with an historic comet collision with the Earth's atmosphere on 17 January AD 773.https://www.nature.com/articles/srep03728
Consequences
So not only are C-14 levels not stable, they are unstable in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons and in a variety of eras. It is apparent that we can not account and correct for every volcano and meteor impact in the history of the earth nor can we properly account for the manmade c-14 changes or nuclear testing. Anyone who believes we can I would ask them "How many volcanoes, meteors, nuclear tests, and manmade c-14 changes have affected this sample?".
Furthermore
We have no real consensus on how long c-14 test is accurate.
Carbon dating only works for objects that are younger than about 50,000 years, and most rocks of interest are older than that. https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/07/10/how-do-geologists-use-carbon-dating-to-find-the-age-of-rocks/
Carbon-14 dating can go no further back than about 70,000 years, because the half-life of carbon-14 is only 5,730 years. https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/07/10/how-do-geologists-use-carbon-dating-to-find-the-age-of-rocks/
Stable isotope analyses of bone collagen are commonly performed in archaeological (e.g., Schoeninger et al., 1983; Bocherens et al., 2015; Naito et al., 2016; Boethius and Ahlström, 2018) and ecological studies (e.g., Schoeninger and DeNiro, 1984; Matsubayashi et al., 2015; Swift et al., 2018; Han et al., 2019) for the purpose of reconstructing an organism's diet. In humans and other animals, bone collagen generally records long-term isotopic information (Stenhouse and Baxter, 1979; Wild et al., 2000; Hedges et al., 2007) and can be preserved in bone for over 100,000 years (Jones et al., 2001). Therefore, isotopic values obtained from bone collagen can be used to reconstruct the diet and environment of animals that lived in the past. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440318302450
Here we have 3 different dates to the extent that C14 is usable. At the very least we know for sure that the scientists do not agree on the useful range for c14 dating and that c14 dating is not being uniformly & objectively calibrated among scientists.
Tree rings Ice Cores & Varves
These are all considered to prove RMD as reliable and serve as confirmation of the data. Now some say that dendrochronology is supported by radiocarbon dating, these will also say that RCD is supported by dendrochronology. The same circular reasoning is used for ice core samples. They are completely serious and do not realize that elephants are not kept away by whistling, as the lack of elephants being proof of such a claim. The circular reasoning here is obvious.
Tree Rings
The idea of tree rings giving age is called dendrochronology and is flawed in all aspects. It says that trees have annual rings due to their growth rates and the death of outermost cells during colder or dryer climates. This produces rings every year that can be measured and thus give an accurate age. How is it then that we have tree rings in the desert where there is no discernable difference in temperature or moisture throughout the year? How about Tierra Del Fuego where the weather's so erratic it often snows, rains, shines, and cycles these patterns several times a day? The fact is that less than 40% of dendrochronology samples taken from the very best dendrochronology specific trees reflect annual tree growth cycles despite what the media tells you.
"Fifty-five rings on a stump = a fifty-five year old tree. But, it's not always that simple. In fact, only about 40% of tree samples are successfully dated by dendrochronologists, says Ron Towner, Associate Professor of Dendroarchaeology at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research."
Jan 30, 2013 Dendrochronology | Time Team America | PBSwww.pbs.org › time-team › experience-archaeology
"Dracaena draco was also regarded for some time as the longest-living member of the plant world, although it does not have the annual rings that reveal age."
Jane Pearson, and Hew D. V. Prendergast. “Daemonorops, Dracaena and Other Dragon's Blood.” Economic Botany, vol. 55, no. 4, 2001, pp. 474–477. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4256483.
Radiocarbon measurements are based on the assumption that atmospheric carbon-14 concentration has remained constant as it was in 1950 and that the half-life of carbon-14 is 5568 years. Calibration of radiocarbon results is needed to account for changes in the atmospheric concentration of carbon-14 over time. These changes were brought about by several factors including, but not limited to, fluctuations in the earth’s geomagnetic moment, fossil fuel burning, and nuclear testing. The most popular and often used method for calibration is by dendrochronology. http://14chrono.org/research/dendrochronology/
Radiocarbon Dating Tree Rings Today
Today, dendrochronologists all over the world follow in the footsteps of Douglass, and whenever it is not possible to use tree-ring dating to place wood samples in time, they use radiocarbon to date wood samples.https://research.arizona.edu/stories/radiocarbon-dating-gets-postmodern-makeover
Ice Cores
to analyze the content of the air bubbles, and determine not only the proportion of different gases but also the proportion of specific isotopes of those gases is also technologically challenging.
Because the gases in the atmosphere are mixed and decay over time this adds another element of uncertainty. In effect, the data represent the average over a period of time, which can be several decades; a corollary of this is that data calculated from ice cores, for temperature of CO2 for example, will have less variation than the measured record.
In the case of temperature no direct measurement is possible. The temperature values are estimated from different isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen. The methodology is based on the assumption that different isotopes evaporate at different rates depending on the temperature. It is generally considered that the best estimate of temperature from ice cores is based on the use of both Oxygen-18 and Deuterium. Another complication is that ice is not stationary, which means that the ice collected at lower layers may not be the ice that was originally underneath the upper layers.
Varves (Above photo shows varves formed within mere hours at the Mount Saint Helens Eruption)
Sediment collected in traps in a newly formed lake in the blast-impact area at Mount St. Helens recorded a sediment yield that is about two orders of magnitude greater than for comparable basins with vegetation and similar precipitation. Most sediment was mobilized by storms and runoff at the onset of the wet season. The sedimentation response to strongly seasonal precipitation, in the absence of vegetation, produced turbidites and graded annual couplets. The style of sedimentation suggests an alternate mechanism for the formation of long sequences of graded clastic varves.https://www.usgs.gov/publications/sedimentation-blast-zone-lake-mount-st-helens-washington-implications-varve-formation
Buchheim H.P. and Biaggi, R., Laminae counts within a synchronous oil shale unit: a challenge to the “varve”? concept, Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 20:A317, 1988
Here we have two volcanic events and a certain number of varves between the two events. On one side we have 1160 varves and the other has 1568 varves. The volcanic events are hard proof of specific times and the number of varves should not vary at all. They vary by more than 25 percent.
Fineberg, J., From Cinderella’s dilemma to rock slides, Nature 386:323–324, 1997
This shows many varves can form simultaneously and in great numbers rather than annually.
So does this.
Makse, H.A., et al., Spontaneous stratification in granular mixtures, Nature 386:379–382
The 105,000 Year Old WWII Planes
Wrecked P-38 on July 4 beneath more than 300 feet (91 meters) of ice
https://www.livescience.com/63423-lost-squadron-unearthed-greenland-glacier.html
However, comparisons of the two ice cores made it clear that although both cores provide excellent records of past climatic conditions some 105,000 years back in time, the stratigraphies of the bottom ~300 m of both cores are disturbed. The ice has been flowing over the uneven bedrock topography in the area which has resulted in folding of the layers older than 105,000 years. This means that the ice deposited during the Eemian warm period some 115,000 - 130,000 years ago is disturbed.
https://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/research/drill_analysing/history_drilling/central_ice_cores/
Electromagnetic Interference with RMD
Cosmogenic Isotope Production
Cosmogenic radionuclides are continuously produced from the bombardment of stable nuclides by cosmic radiation. The sun is the closest source of such radiation, but the cosmic ray flux is primarily galactic, modulated by the sun and by solar wind (Gosse and Phillips, 2001). The collision process, whereby the cosmic particle shatters or interacts with the stable element to form a radionuclide, is called spallation. This process mostly occurs in the upper atmosphere and lower troposphere, but also on the Earth's surface. It should be noted that the production rate is lower in the tropics than at the poles (in the atmosphere or at the crust) primarily due to the effect of the Earth's magnetic field (Gosse and Phillips, 2001).
Calibration of radiocarbon results is needed to account for changes in the atmospheric concentration of carbon-14 over time. These changes were brought about by several factors including, but not limited to, fluctuations in the earth’s geomagnetic moment, fossil fuel burning, and nuclear testing.
Earths Geomagnetic moments
Here we have a very strong shift in the EMF of the earth that requires a global calibration and correction. Surely this will have a dramatic effect on RMD. We know that all cosmogenic isotopes are created by the gamma rays from space. Any variation in either the number of, intensity of, or concentration of these rays will cause a variation in the cosmogenic isotopes. The Van Allen belt of the earth and the heliosphere of the sun provide protection against these however both of these fluctuate continuously as well indicating that not only must we account for the various gamma rays but also the EMF fluctuations. You might think this would be a simple task but the variances can be extreme and very fast.
The problems all start here " 14C is continually being produced in the Earth's upper atmosphere by bombardment of 14N by cosmic rays. Thus the ratio of 14C to 14N in the Earth's atmosphere is constant."
Dept. Earth & Env. Sciences Tulane University New Orleans, LA; Stephen A. Nelson.
https://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/eens212/radiometric_dating.htm
This is in no way constant at all and fluctuates dramatically and constantly.
This variation occurred over just a few days. Each crest and trough shows a difference not only in cosmogenic isotope creation but in cosmogenic contamination of surface particles in existing rock.
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/spaceweather/welcome.html#flow
University of Delaware Department of Physics and Astronomy and Bartol Research Institute. Spaceship Earth
In 1991 the northern lights were seen as far south as New Orleans and Atlanta. These lights are produced by electromagnetic radiation filtering in from the EMF of the earth and are results from the ions from the sun blasting the earth. In a strong blast we will have changes in cosmogenic isotope formation levels. The stronger the electromagnetic storm on the sun the more cosmogenic isotopes will be produced on earth. This is one example of a very strong storm, which in turn produced massive amounts of C14 and Be10 as well as all other cosmogenic Isotopes.
YOU WEREN'T SEEING THINGS: THAT WAS THE NORTHERN LIGHTS The Morning Call Carol Cleveland, March 26, 1991
https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1991-03-26-2779133-story.html
"The aurora borealis, a brilliant nocturnal light show sparked by magnetic fields and flares from the sun, did indeed appear in the Lehigh Valley skies late Sunday night, government scientists confirmed yesterday."
We see another here. http://www.solarstorms.org/SS1859.html
Solar Storm 1859 by Solar Storms | History | Richard Carrington World Wide Web
"The great geomagnetic storm of 1859 is really composed of two closely spaced massive worldwide auroral events. The first event began on August 28th and the second began on September 2nd. It is the storm on September 2nd that results from the Carrington-Hodgson white light flare that occurred on the sun September 1st.
This became known as "the Carrington event"
What If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Today? RICHARD A. LOVETT, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS March 4, 2011
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/3/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/
To compound matters not only do we have massive solar activity changing the cosmogenic isotope creation rate but the earth magnetic field is not helping matters. It is in a constant state of flux and continuously changing and adjusting itself in accordance with the earth's dynamo. We now have two things that change constantly both of which directly impact cosmogenic isotope production. This produces a very erratic and unstable CI4 production over any amount of time, variances up to and including 30% in a single day.
"The most recent version of the model came out in 2015 and was supposed to last until 2020 — but the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that researchers have to fix the model now. “The error is increasing all the time,” says Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Centers for Environmental Information." "They realized that it was so inaccurate that it was about to exceed the acceptable limit for navigational errors."
Earth’s magnetic field is acting up and geologists don’t know why Nature, Alexandra Witze 09 JANUARY 2019
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00007-1
https://phys.org/news/2010-08-radioactive-vary-sun-rotation.html
"A team of scientists from Purdue and Stanford universities has found that the decay of radioactive isotopes fluctuates in synch with the rotation of the sun's core" Radioactive decay rates vary with the sun's rotation: research Elizabeth K. Gardner, Purdue University AUGUST 31, 2010
https://physicsworld.com/a/do-solar-neutrinos-affect-nuclear-decay-on-earth/
Physics world NUCLEAR PHYSICS RESEARCH UPDATE Do solar neutrinos affect nuclear decay on Earth? 24 Nov 2016
"Further evidence that solar neutrinos affect radioactive decay rates on Earth has been put forth by a trio of physicists in the US. While previous research looked at annual fluctuations in decay rates, the new study presents evidence of oscillations that occur with frequencies around 11 and 12.5 cycles per year. The latter oscillation appears to match patterns in neutrino-detection data from the Super-Kamiokande observatory, in Japan."
"In 2009, physicists from Purdue University in Indiana published a paper discussing unexplained annual fluctuations in long-term measurements of decay rates of silicon-32 and chlorine-36 at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in New York and radium-226 at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany."
And here we have the evidence that all of these affect present decay rates. This was found in a lab studying random number generation from radioactive isotopes. They found the decay rate fluctuated with the sun's activity. This means that there is a cycle mechanism within the sun that changes the decay rate of radioisotopes. This also means that any change in the Van Allen belt or earths EMF, sun spots, solar flares, or other cosmic radiation would have the same effect. Given the evidence of spikes and troughs up to 30% in a single day as shown previously we can not have any certainty whatsoever about the actual RMD data. Not only are the isotopes being created at different rates but the decay rates are not stable. In real world context this means that if we find two rocks say a few meters from each other that were created within say 100 years of one another we will find a variance between those rocks not only of the number of cosmogenic isotopes but also in the decay rates for that 100 years. This alone shows a tremendous discrepancy in RMD and that using isotopes is unreliable. The standard argument I receive to this data is "we have a margin of error to account for variances like this" My response is that if we only limit the variances to 25% and only occur monthly over a period of 2000 years we can be off as much as 8,800 years in either direction. That margin of error is actually larger as the date from BP itself meaning the date would be anywhere from 11,200 - 28,800 a range of 17,600 and this is only counting for the cosmogenic production variable. When we calculate the decay rate variables we could be off an unknown amount but at least another 10% each month meaning our date range exceeds the 2,000 date itself by a factor of ten.
I understand however if a single research paper finding is no cause for concern. So here are a few more.
"Finally, we demonstrate how ratio-calibration methods are not as reliable as one might like. Our data illustrates how long-term drifts in both the absolute and relative detection efficiency can masquerade as “interesting” science if systematic effects are not properly considered." as well as "Solar-dependent variations would invalidate the purely exponential decay of radioactive nuclei, potentially requiring modifications to radiation standards, with important implications for geo- and astrochronology."
2.7 years of beta-decay-rate ratio measurements in a controlled environment Q.McKnightS.D.BergesonJ.PeatrossM.J.Ware
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, United States
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969804318306122
and another here from Cornell
"We show from an analysis of the raw data in these experiments that the observed fluctuations are strongly correlated in time, not only with each other, but also with the distance between the Earth and the Sun. "
Jenkins, Jere H. et al. “Evidence of Correlations Between Nuclear Decay Rates and Earth–Sun Distance.” Astroparticle Physics 32.1 (2009): 42–46. Crossref. Web.
https://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3283
and again here
"The analysis of correlations between fluctuations of alpha- and beta-decay rates for different radio-active elements is carried out. These fluctuations exceed significantly errors of measurements in many cases. "
baurov 2010 variations Variations of decay rates of radio-active elements and their connections with global anisotropy of physical space
Yu. A. Baurov and I. F. Malov 2010 1001.5383 physics.gen-ph
https://arxiv.org/abs/1001.5383
This is a graph of the fluctuations in the Earths magnetic field over a few days. This is the mechanism that reflects cosmic radiation that creates cosmogenic isotopes such as C14. Even a small weakening creates more radiometric isotopes.
Given this information what could we expect if there was a supernova? What if there was a solar storm? What if there was a serious fluctuation in the poles? All of this would affect radioactive isotope production on earth proportionately.
More EM Interference
If this was not enough evidence let us discuss lightning and thunderstorms. So far we have shown that solar and other radiation can distort and create different levels of radio isotopes but what if we had lightning and thunderstorms doing the same thing? Here we do.
https://physicsworld.com/a/lightning-creates-radioactive-isotopes/
Here is the research paper: Lightning strikes create radioactive isotopes
Tim Wogan Published 1 January 2018 • Physics World, Volume 31, Number 1
Here is another making the same claim:
Breakthrough in understanding rare lightning-triggered gamma-rays Date: May 17, 2018 Source: University of Utah
And just in case the japanese and Americans got it wrong this is the same research being done in Europe.
TGF Afterglows: A New Radiation Mechanism From Thunderstorms C. Rutjes G. Diniz I. S. Ferreira U. Ebert First published:02 October 2017
Now we have compounded the problem quite a bit. If new isotopes can be created and manipulated by lightning then that means we need to account for the variances in each sample. If that sample is millions of years old how can we determine the extent of lightning gamma influence with any certainty at all? Basically we need to know how many thunderstorms have caused gamma effects and influenced the decay rate or quantity of isotopes in the sample over the lifetime of the rock. This can not be known and yet here we have three independent labs all confirming this occurs. It gets worse.
Here we see that this can occur up to 1.7 KM away from the lightning strike itself.
Enoto, T., Wada, Y., Furuta, Y. et al. Photonuclear reactions triggered by lightning discharge. Nature 551, 481–484 (2017).
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24630
Even Rutherford understood this effect back in 1900 as follows
"Experiments, which are still in progress, show that the emanation possesses a very remarkable property. I have found that the positive ion produced in a gas by the emanation possesses the power of producing radioactivity in all substances on which it falls. This power of giving forth a radiation lasts for several days. The radiation is of a more penetrating character than that given out by thorium or uranium."
A Radioactive Substance emitted from Thorium by E. RUTHERFORD, M.A., B.SC.From the Philosophical Magazine for January 1900, ser. 5, xlix, pp. 1-14
Gamma rays Turn Nitrogen into C-14
Nitrogen has no decay rate
C-14 does
Lightning produces Gamma rays
When these gamma rays hit radioactive isotopes it must change the isotope and therefore change the decay rate.
Lecture critiqued with this information
Here we go step by step through a lecture from a nuclear physics professor and see how many known flaws are used in the process of calculating RMD dates.
At 28 seconds he says the ratio of C14 -C12 has remained stable in the atmosphere but we know that meteors, volcanoes, industry, & Nuclear testing has altered these ratios.
At time stamp 1:05 we find that he thinks the decay rate has not wavered regardless of lightning or magnetic field fluctuations. We know this is not logical as these do indeed change the instant decay rate.
Between time stamp 1:10 & 1:40 he uses two assumptions. Remember the synonyms for the word assumption from above.
At time stamp 2:24 he repeats the assumption of ratios of C14-C12.
At time stamp 4:10 he gives a new decay rate for C14 conflicting the original decay rate that is even written on the white board behind him. If the decay rates change then what are we discussing here?
M&Ms and RMD
From Berkley University
A tasty way for students to understand about half life is to give each team 100 pieces of "regular" M & M candy. On a piece of notebook paper, each piece should be placed with the printed M facing down. This represents the parent isotope. The candy should be poured into a container large enough for them to bounce around freely, it should be shaken thoroughly, then poured back onto the paper so that it is spread out instead of making a pile. This first time of shaking represents one half life, and all those pieces of candy that have the printed M facing up represent a change to the daughter isotope. The team should pick up and set aside ONLY those pieces of candy that have the M facing up. Then, count the number of pieces of candy left with the M facing down. These are the parent isotope that did not change during the first half life.
The teacher should have each team report how many pieces of parent isotope remain, and the first row of the decay table (Figure 2) should be filled in and the average number calculated. The same procedure of shaking, counting the "survivors", and filling in the next row on the decay table should be done seven or eight more times. Each time represents a half life.
After the results of the final "half life" of the M& M are collected, the candies are no longer needed.
In my research for this topic I have ran this experiment many times with varying degrees of accuracy. I recommend you do the same. It proves that half-lives are not static. Lambda (the baseline used to calculate decay over time) is false. The reason is because in a random system you will never get a 50/50 chance. a 50/50 chance will have exactly the same likelihood as a 99/1 or 34/66 or 12/88 chance. This is why we have tried to produce truly random number generators from Uranium.
https://hackaday.com/2015/08/16/hackaday-prize-entry-nuclear-powered-random-number-generator/
If it did have a 50/50 chance then it would not be truly random. The true random number generator proves it is indeed truly random and therefore cannot have a static decay rate.
Sometimes 70% of the M&Ms will be M0 while other times 70% will be M1 and every variation between. There is also no outside influence such as lightning or gamma ray bursts from space to influence any result.
"Radioactive dating is a method of dating rocks and minerals using radioactive isotopes. This method is useful for igneous and metamorphic rocks, which cannot be dated by the stratigraphic correlation method used for sedimentary rocks."
from
https://australian.museum/learn/minerals/shaping-earth/radioactive-dating/
CIRCULAR REASONING ON DISPLAY
How old is the rock?
The rock is X old
How do you know?
Because the fossil is X old
How old is the fossil?
The fossil is X old
How do you know?
We know because the rock is X old.
Establishing the ages of strata within a region, as well as the ages of strata in other regions and on different continents, involves stratigraphic correlation from place to place. Although correlation of strata over modest distances often can be accomplished by tracing particular beds from place to place, correlation over long distances and over the oceans almost invariably involves comparison of fossils. With rare exceptions, fossils occur only in sedimentary strata. Paleontology, which is the science of ancient life and deals with fossils, is mutually interdependent with stratigraphy and with historical geology.
Pb206 U235 & the age of earth
The 1/2 life of U235 is 700 MY.
If the 1/2 life of Ur235 is 700MY & earth is 4.5BY old then we should have about 6.4 times as much Bp206 as we do U235.
We have the following data.
The ultimate constraint is the total mass of Earth's crust (oceanic + continental), which, from C2, is 2.77 (in units of 1022 kg). https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFM.V33A1161P/abstract#:~:text=The%20major%20source%20of%20uncertainty,units%20of%201022%20kg).
Lead is a highly lustrous, bluish-white element that makes up only about 0.0013 percent of the Earth's crust
24.1% of all lead on earth is Pb206
PB206 comes mostly from the decay of U235. About 14% of Pb206 comes from nature.
"The ranges of isotopic ratios for most natural materials are 14.0-30.0 respectively" for 206Pb/204Pb"
https://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/isoig/period/pb_iig.html
There is 17 million Metric tons of Ur 235 on earth.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/
Therefore
(1.7 X 10^10 KG) X 0.000013 =2.21 X 10^5KG X .241 = 53261
weight of the earths crust % of lead in the crust Weight of lead on earth % of lead that is Pb206
8.67841 × 10^16Kg of Pb206 on earth or 8.687 X10^13 Metric tons
Now if instead we believe that the age of the earth is correct and we calculate what we should have we see the following
If the 1/2 life of Ur235 is 700MY & earth is 4.5BY old then we should have about 99.3 times as much Bp206.
53261* 99.3 is 5.315 X 10^6 Metric tons of Pb206.
We should have 5,315,000 metric tons of Pb206
We have 86,870,000,000,000 Metric tons. This is 6 orders of magnitude different from the calculated amount if the RMD data was correct.
This data is incongruent. Both cannot be true.
It is not even close.
What does all this mean ?
It means U235 - Bp206 is unreliable.
Don't take my word for it.
"Since Earth was formed, the abundance of daughter product isotopes has increased through time. For example, the ratio of lead of mass 206 relative to that of mass 204 has changed from an initial value of about 10 present when Earth was formed to an average value of about 19 in rocks at the terrestrial surface today. This is true because uranium is continuously creating more lead. A lead-rich mineral formed and isolated early in Earth’s history would have a low ratio of lead-206 to lead-204 because it did not receive subsequent additions by the radioactive decay of uranium. If Earth’s interior were a simple and homogeneous reservoir with respect to the ratio of uranium to lead, a single sample extracted by a volcano would provide the time of extraction. This would be called a model age. No parent-daughter value for a closed system is involved—rather, just a single isotopic measurement of lead viewed with respect to the expected evolution of lead on and in Earth. Unfortunately, the simplifying assumption in this case is not true, and lead model ages are approximate at best. Other model ages can be calculated using neodymium isotopes by extrapolating present values back to a proposed mantle-evolution line. In both cases, approximate ages that have a degree of validity with respect to one another result, but they are progressively less reliable as the assumptions on which the model is calculated are violated."
Carbon Dating falsified by scientists themselves
LIVING ORGANISMS TESTED
"Living mollusk shells were dated up to 2,300 years old.
A freshly killed seal was carbon dated as having died 1,300 years ago."
Regarding the mollusk shells, Christopher Gregory Weber writes the following in the Creation Evolution Journal:
"[This finding] does discredit the C-14 dating of freshwater mussels, but that's about all. Kieth and Anderson show considerable evidence that the mussels acquired much of their carbon from the limestone of the waters they lived in and from some very old humus as well. Carbon from these sources is very low in C-14 because these sources are so old and have not been mixed with fresh carbon from the air. Thus, a freshly killed mussel has far less C-14 than a freshly killed something else, which is why the C-14 dating method makes freshwater mussels seem older than they really are. When dating wood there is no such problem because wood gets its carbon straight from the air, complete with a full dose of C-14."
What about the freshly killed seal? As Talk Origins writes,
"This is the well-known reservoir effect . . . The seals feed off of animals that live in a nutrient-rich upwelling zone. The water that is upwelling has been traveling along the [ocean] bottom for a few thousand years before surfacing. The carbon dioxide in it came from the atmosphere before the water sank. Thus, the carbon in the sea water is a couple of thousand years 'old' from when it was in the atmosphere, and its radiocarbon content reflects this time."
Once again, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this discrepancy, and this doesn't justify a wholesale dismissal of radiometric dating. Notice a pattern here?
Now you might be saying at this point: If we can't use these dating methods on certain types of rock or animal, it seems to me that they're just not trustworthy. Understand that nobody is saying radiometric dating works perfectly in every conceivable set of circumstances; as with almost every tool in science, there are certain limitations to radiometric dating—and nobody understands these limitations better than the scientists who use these dating techniques. As they write on Talk Origins,
"Contrary to creationist propaganda, limitations of a tool do not invalidate the tool."
By analogy, diagnostic tools in medicine will sometimes generate false positives, where the test results inaccurately indicate that a person has a disease that they don't actually have. This doesn't therefore make these tools completely worthless; it just means that sometimes, they get it wrong—but when properly applied, the techniques will give us the correct answer the vast majority of the time.
So here they test sea life and use C14 as the testing method. Obviously C14 is the very best method for dating biologic material as we have seen earlier so the methodology is sound. However the dates were very inaccurate given the 1/2 life of 5730 years and the fact that again, we can actually count the number of C14 atoms in the sample.
The excuses given were that they lived in the wrong environment but as we have seen previously this is not the case at all. Nowhere did we find any evidence whatsoever that the physical location has anything to do with C14 variation. Instead we find huge variances within very short periods of time and therefore very strange results as we do here. There is no more explanation as to why this limestone and humus had this effect or why this somehow reduced the intake of C14 from the freshwater the animal lived in. It just doesn't work.
The next case was a live seal and the reason given was the reservoir effect. This is a known phenomena and means basically that the difference between ocean surface, deep ocean, and terrestrial C14 levels makes testing ocean life nearly impossible. https://www.radiocarbon.com/marine-reservoir-effect.htm
Except here they have the correction.
"Marine Reservoir Effect Correction Terrestrial and marine samples cannot be compared or associated without accounting for the marine radiocarbon reservoir effect. Correction factors for different oceans in the world are found in an online database, the Marine Reservoir Correction Database, funded in part by the Institute for Aegean Prehistory. Actual correction varies with location due to complexities in ocean circulation. The database is also intended for use with radiocarbon calibration programs such as CALIB (Stuiver and Reimer, 1993) or OxCal (Bronk Ramsey 1995) using the 2013 marine calibration dataset."
You guessed it, the correction does not work the way they want it to and is so obviously flawed in this case of the seal being tested that the secularists doesn't even try for it. I guess they are banking on the idea that you would not do your own homework and learn of the employed correction and normalization of the data.
Now we have a different excuse which is obviously a real and measurable flaw in carbon dating which is owned and openly admitted. The problem is the other dozen reasons C14 dating does not work. There is also the other problem of deep time normalization. If the oceans absorb C14 at a constant rate as is produced then the ocean areas at least locally would normalize within a certain A to B ratio given enough time. Stated another way, the C14 levels in the ocean should be stable. However this is not the case as directly stated. Why have the oceans not normalized themselves over time? Why is this such a problem? No answer is given and the ramifications and implications of the reason for the discrepancy are not addressed at all.
So now we know we can not test in oceans, freshwater, or in other specific instances.
What about normal soil? This research paper submitted for coursework in 2015 at Stanford says no.
"One of the main problems with this method of soil radiocarbon dating is the presence of a steady state, beyond which 14C dating will yield no useful information regarding the age of the soil."
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/lin2/
We can not test soil either? We can not test at the polar regions as glaciation either moves or does not move the rocks. No ocean testing, no river testing. What is left that we can test exactly?