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is the Earth?
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Table of Contents
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evidence. In other words, it could be said that the Earth looks neither old nor youngit all depends
on the belief glasses through which one is viewing (interpreting) the evidence. Or to put it another
way, it is just as valid for me to say, looking at the world through the lens of the Bible (rather
than the humanistic, evolutionized lens of our culture), that it looks young (i.e. thousands, not
billions of years old).
Summarizing just some of the evidence that is consistent with a young age for the world:
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Weve often featured in this magazine instances which are particularly spectacular, like the mother
ichthyosaur apparently freeze-framed in the process of giving birth. Then there are the fossil fish
which are found either in the process of swallowing other fish or with undigested fish intact in their
stomachs (see Creation magazine for photoswe had only one-off permission for some of them).
Scientists have long known that petrifaction can happen quickly. The petrified bowler hat (above
right, by Renton Maclachlan) is on display in a mining museum in New Zealand. The photo
(above left) shows a roll of no. 8 fencing wire which, in only 20 years, became encased in solid
sandstone, containing hundreds of fossil shells. Petrified wood can also form quickly under the right
conditionsone process has even been patented.5
The famous multiple levels of fossil forests in Americas Yellowstone National Park have now been
shown to have formed in one volcanic event.6 Successive mudflows transported upright trees (minus
most of their roots and branches) whose tree-ring signatures confirm that they grew at the one time.
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only a fraction of this goes back onto the land. Using the most favourable possible assumptions
for long-agers, the absolute maximum age of the oceans is only a tiny fraction of their assumed
billions-of-years age.7
DESPITE SOME inevitable unsolved problems in such a complex issue (see below for why radiometric dating is not infallible), it is thus not hard to establish:
i) The reasonableness of believing what the Creator of the world says in His Word, the Bible, about
the world being thousands, not millions or billions, of years old.
ii) The fact that the Earth neither looks old nor looks young as suchit all depends on the glasses
through which the evidence is interpreted. We all need to be aware of how much we have been
conditioned by our culture to see geological things as looking old.
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The secular timeline, from an alleged big bang to now, is accepted by most people in the evangelical
Christian world, even though they would deny evolution. However, this puts people at the end of
creation (see diagram above). But in several places in the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator
made flesh, makes it plain that this is wrongpeople were there from the beginning of creation. This
means that the world cannot be billions of years old.
For example, dealing with the doctrine of marriage, Jesus says in Mark 10:6, But from the beginning
of the creation, God made them male and female.
In Luke 11:5051, Jesus says:
That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be
required of this generation; From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias .
Romans 1:20 makes it plain that people can clearly see Gods power by looking at the things that
are made, and that people have been able to see this from the creation of the world. Not billions
of years after creation.
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3. When the assumptions are tested by measuring rocks of known agee.g. recent lava flowsthey
often fail miserably.8
4. Objects of the same age, tested by different methods, have been shown to give dates varying by
a factor of a thousand.9
5. The fact that there is some consistency to radiometric dates is explained in part by the tendency
to publish only data consistent with the evolutionary age already established by fossils. Most
radioactive dating laboratories prefer you to tell them what age you expect. It is hard to see why this
would be necessary if these were absolute methods. The entire geological millions of years system
was largely in place, based on the philosophical assumptions of men like Charles Lyell and James
Hutton, before radioactivity was even discovered. Where a radioactive date contradicts the system,
it is invariably discarded.
6. If a radiometric date and a fossil (evolutionary) date conflict, the radiometric date is always
discarded.
There are many other solid reasons for not accepting fallible man-made methods, such as radioactive
dating, as an authority in opposition to the clear testimony of Gods infallible Word.
REFERENCES
1. Walker, T., Eroding ages, Creation 22(2):1821, 2000.
2. Sarfati, J., Blowing old-Earth belief away, Creation 20(3):1921, 1998.
3. Zangerl, R. and Richardson, E.S., The paleoecological history of two Pennsylvanian black shales,
Fieldiana: Geology Memoirs 4, 1963 cited in Garner, P., Green River blues, Creation 19(3):1819,
1997.
4. Organic Geochemistry 6:463471, 1984.
5. Snelling, A., Instant petrified wood, Creation 17(4):3840, 1995.
6. Sarfati, J., The Yellowstone petrified forests, Creation 21(2):1821, 1999.
7. Sarfati, J., Salty seas: evidence the Earth is young, Creation 21(1):1617, 1998.
8. Snelling, A., Radioactive dating failure, Creation 22(1):1821, 2000; Dalrymple, G. and
Moore, J., Argon 40: Excess in submarine pillow basalts from Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii, Science
161:11321135, September 13, 1968.
9. Snelling, A., Radioactive dating in conflict, Creation 20(1):2427, 1997; Snelling, A., Conflicting
ages of Tertiary basalt and contained fossilised wood, Crinum, Central Queensland, Australia,
CEN Tech. J. 14(2):99122, 2000.
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need to start. God was there when He created the world. He knows everything, does not tell lies, and
does not make mistakes. It is from the Bible that we learn that the world is young.
If the Bible taught that the world was millions of years old,8 we would believe that. However, the
concept of millions of years of death and suffering contradicts the Word of God, and destroys the
foundation of the Gospel of Christ.
Many people find it difficult to accept that scientific investigation should start with the Bible. They
think we can answer the question about the age of the Earth by coming to the evidence with an open
mind. In fact, no one has an open mind. Evidence does not interpret itself; rather, everyone views
the world through a belief framework. Unfortunately, as humans we never have all the information.
So, when we start from the evidence, we can never be sure our conclusions are rightlike in a classic
whodunnit, just one piece of information can change the whole picture. By contrast, when we start
from the Word of God, we can be sure that what it says is true.
Even if we cant answer some of the apparent problems now, we can be confident that there is an
answer. We may not find out about the answer on this side of eternity, but that would simply be
because we did not have all the information necessary to come to the right conclusion. On the other
hand, ongoing research may reveal the answerand it often has, as we will see.
On first appearance, the evidence that Hayward assembles seems so overwhelming. But the problems
he describes are easily answeredindeed many answers were known before he wrote his book. Either
he was unaware of the answers, or he deliberately ignored them. Lets look at some of the science
he presents so persuasively.
VARVES
A common argument against the Bible involves varvesrock formations
with alternating layers of fine dark, and coarse light sediment. Annual
changes are assumed to deposit bands with light layers in summer and
dark layers in winter. It is reported that some rock formations contain
hundreds of thousands of varves, thereby proving the Earth is much
older than the Bible says.9 But the assumption that each couplet always
takes a year to form is wrong. Recent catastrophes show that violent
events like the Flood described in Genesis can deposit banded rock
formations very quickly. The Mount St Helens eruption in Washington
State produced eight metres (25 feet) of finely layered sediment in a
single afternoon!10 And a rapidly pumped sand slurry was observed to
deposit about a metre (3-4 feet) of fine layers on a beach over an area
the size of a football field (cross-section shown on the right: normal
silica sand grains are separated by darker layers of denser mineral grains
like rutile).11
When sedimentation was studied in the laboratory, it was discovered
that fine bands form automatically as the moving water transports the
different sized particles sideways into position (right).12 Surprisingly, the
thickness of each band was found to depend on the relative particle
sizes rather than on the flow conditions.13 A layered rock (diatomite)
was separated into its particles, and when redeposited in flowing fluid,
identical layers formed.14
Much is often made of the Green River varves,9 in Wyoming, USA. But
these bands cannot possibly be annual deposits because well-preserved
fish and birds are found all through the sediments.
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It is unthinkable that these dead animals could have rested on the bottom of the lake for decades,
being slowly covered by sediment. Their presence indicates catastrophic burial. It is often claimed
that the fish and birds remained in prime condition at the bottom of the lake because the water was
highly alkaline and this preserved their carcasses.15 Yet highly alkaline water causes organic material
to disintegrate, and that is why alkaline powder is used in dishwashers! Another problem for the
varve explanation is that the number of bands is not consistent across the formation as it should be
if they were annual deposits.16
EVAPORITES
Similar bands in some huge deposits containing calcium carbonate and calcium sulphate in Texas are
also used to argue the case for long ages.17 One explanation says the deposits were formed when the
sun evaporated seawaterhence the term evaporite deposits. Naturally, to make such large deposits
in this way would take a long time. However, the high chemical purity of the deposits shows they were
not exposed to a dry, dusty climate for thousands of years. Rather, it is more likely that they formed
rapidly from the interaction between hot and cold seawater during undersea volcanic activitya
hydrothermal deposit.18
FOSSIL FORESTS
The petrified forests of Yellowstone National Park have often been used to argue against Bible chronology.26 These were once interpreted as buried and petrified in placeas many as 50 successive times, with
a brand new forest growing upon the debris of the previous one. Naturally, such an interpretation would
require hundreds of thousands of years to deposit the whole sequence and is inconsistent with the Bible
time-scale. But this interpretation is also inconsistent with the fact that the tree trunks and stumps have
been broken off at their base and do not have proper root systems. Furthermore, trees from different
layers have the same signature ring pattern, demonstrating that they all grew at the same time.27
Rather than 50 successive forests, the geological evidence is more consistent with the trees having been
uprooted from another place, and carried into position by catastrophic volcanic mudflowssimilar to
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what happened during the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980, where waterlogged trees were also seen
to float and sink with the root end pointing downwards.28
PITCH
The origin of pitch is also used to ridicule the account of Noah in the Bible.29 Pitch is a petroleum
residue, we are told, and creationists say that petroleum was formed by the Flood. So, where did Noah
get the pitch to seal the Ark (Genesis 6:14)? This old argument stems from ignorance of how pitch can
be made. The widespread use of petroleum is a 20th century phenomenon. How did they seal wooden
ships hundreds of years ago before petroleum was available? In those days, pitch was made from pine
tree resin.30 A huge pitch-making industry flourished to service the demand.
NOAHS MUD-BATH?
Some attempts to discredit the Bible are wildly absurdlike the idea that there is too much sedimentary
rock in the world to have been deposited by the one-year Flood. It is claimed that the Ark would have
floated on an ocean of Earthy soup and no fish could have survived.31 This argument takes no account
of how water actually carries sediment. The claim naively assumes that all the sediment was evenly mixed
in all the water throughout the Flood year, as if thoroughly stirred in a garden fishpond. Sedimentation
does not occur like this. Instead, moving water transports sediment into a basin and, once deposited, it
is isolated from the system.12 The same volume of water can pick up more sediment as it is driven across
the continents, for example, by earth movements during the Flood.
Sediment kilometres thick covering metamorphic rocks took millions of years to erode.41
[Only at the erosion rates observed today. There is no problem eroding kilometres of sediment
quickly with large volumes of fast-moving water during the Flood.]
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CONCLUSION
The section above shows some of the other arguments along this line that were once claimed to be
unanswerable. If this article had been written some years earlier, we would not have had all those
answers. We still dont have all the answers to some others, but this does not mean that the answers
dont exist, just that no-one has come up with them yet. There may be new arguments in the future
alleging to prove that the Bible, or one of the previous answers, is wrong. And when these are answered,
there might be new ones again. That is the nature of science. All its conclusions are tentative, and new
discoveries mean that old ideas must be changedthat is why creationist research is important. But
science ultimately cant prove or disprove the Bible. Faith but not a blind faithis needed. It is not
the facts that contradict the Bible, but the interpretations applied to them. Since we never will know
everything, we must start with the sure Word of God in order to make sense of the world around us.
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20. Creationists accept that some fossils formed post-Flood, but these are relatively few and do not
alter the argument.
21. Froede, C., The Karroo and other fossil graveyards, Creation Research Society Quarterly 32(4),
pp. 199-201, 1996.
22. Woodmorappe, J., The antediluvian biosphere and its capability of supplying the entire fossil
record, in The First International Conference on Creationism, Robert Walsh (ed.), Creation Science
Fellowship, Pittsburgh, p. 205-218, 1986.
23. Hayward, Ref. 1, pp. 126-128.
24. Higher atmospheric CO2 has been repeatedly shown to cause more luxuriant plant growth.
25. Wieland, C., Forests that grew on water, Creation 18(1):20-24, 1996; online at <http://
www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1312.asp>. Also Scheven J., The Carboniferous floating forest An extinct pre-Flood ecosystem, CEN Technical Journal 10(1):70-81, 1996, and Schnknecht, G.,
and Scherer, S., Too much coal for a young Earth? CEN Technical Journal 11(3):278-282, 1997;
online at <http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1233.asp>. One of the old-Earth authors dealt
with here actually cited this paper without the question mark, implying that the paper presents a
problem for young-Earthers, whereas it actually shows a solution. See Ross, Ref. 4, p. 152-153,
220 (notes 17 and 21).
26. Hayward, Ref. 1, pp. 128-130.
27. Morris, J., The Young Earth. Master Books, Colorado Springs, pp. 112-117, 1994,
28. Sarfati, J., The Yellowstone petrified forests, Creation 21(2):18-21, 1999; online at <http://
www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4109.asp>.
29. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 185; Ross, Ref. 4, pp. 153-4.
30. Walker, T., The pitch for Noahs Ark. Creation 7(1):20, 1984; online at <http://
www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1115.asp>. See also: Naval stores, The New Encyclopaedia Britannica 8:564-565, 15th Ed., Chicago, 1992.
31. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 122.
32. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 84-87.
33. Oard, M.J. The paradox of Pacific guyots and a possible solution for the thick reefal limestone on
Eniwetok Island, CEN Technical Journal 13(1):1-2, 1999.
34. Roth, A.A., Fossil reefs and time, Origins 22(2):86-104, 1995.
35. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 91-92.
36. Snelling, A.A., Can Flood geology explain thick chalk beds? CEN Technical Journal 8(1):11-15, 1994.
37. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 93.
38. Snelling, A.A. and Woodmorappe, J., Granitesthey didnt need millions of years of cooling,
Creation 21(1):42-44, 1998; online at <http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3970.asp>.
39. Hayward, Ref. 1, p. 91-92.
40. Snelling, A.A., Towards a creationist explanation of regional metamorphism, CEN Technical Journal
8(1):51-57, 1994. Also: Wise, K., How fast do rocks form? In The First International Conference on
Creationism, Robert Walsh (ed.), Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, pp. 197-204, 1986.
41. Hayward, Ref. 1, pp. 91-92.
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plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Even if some bodies of ice exist in that
location, they would not really solve the evolutionists problem, since according to evolutionary theory
the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it.
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REFERENCES
1. Scheffler, H. and H. Elsasser, Physics of the Galaxy and Interstellar Matter, Springer-Verlag (1987)
Berlin, pp. 352353, 401413.
2. D. Zaritsky et al., Nature, July 22, 1993. Sky & Telescope, December 1993, p. 10.
3. Steidl, P.F., Planets, comets, and asteroids, Design and Origins in Astronomy, pp. 73106, G.
Mulfinger, ed., Creation Research Society Books (1983) 5093 Williamsport Dr., Norcross, GA
30092.
4. Whipple, F.L., Background of modern comet theory, Nature 263 (2 Sept 1976) 15.
5. Gordeyev, V.V. et al., The average chemical composition of suspensions in the worlds rivers and
the supply of sediments to the ocean by streams, Dockl. Akad. Nauk. SSSR 238 (1980) 150.
6. Hay, W.W., et al., Mass/age distribution and composition of sediments on the ocean floor and
the global rate of subduction, Journal of Geophysical Research, 93, No B12 (10 December 1988)
14,93314,940.
7. Maybeck, M., Concentrations des eaux fluviales en elements majeurs et apports en solution aux
oceans, Rev. de Geol. Dyn. Geogr. Phys. 21 (1979) 215.
8. Sayles, F.L. and P.C. Mangelsdorf, Cation-exchange characteristics of Amazon River suspended
sediment and its reaction with seawater, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 41 (1979) 767.
9. Austin, S.A. and D.R. Humphreys, The seas missing salt: a dilemma for evolutionists, Proc. 2nd
Internat. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991) in press. Address,
ref. 12.
10. Austin, S.A., Evolution: the oceans say no! ICR Impact No. 8 (Oct. 1973) Institute for Creation
Research, address in ref. 21.
11. Merrill, R.T. and M. W. McElhinney, The Earths Magnetic Field, Academic Press (1983) London,
pp. 101106.
12. Humphreys, D.R., Reversals of the Earths magnetic field during the Genesis flood, Proc. 1st
Internat. Conf. on Creationism (Aug. 1986, Pittsburgh) Creation Science Fellowship (1987) 362
Ashland Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15228, Vol. II, pp. 113126.
13. Coe, R.S., M. Prvot, and P. Camps, New evidence for extraordinarily rapid change of the
geomagnetic field during a reversal, Nature 374 (20 April 1995) pp. 68792.
14. Humphreys, D.R., Physical mechanism for reversals of the Earths magnetic field during the flood,
Proc. 2nd Intern. Conf. on Creationism, Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1991) (ref. 12).
15. Austin, S.A. and J.D. Morris, Tight folds and clastic dikes as evidence for rapid deposition and
deformation of two very thick stratigraphic sequences, Proc. 1st Internat. Conf. on Creationism Vol.
II, Creation Science Fellowship (1986) pp.315. Address in ref. 12.
16. ibid., pp. 1112.
17. Gentry, R.V., Radioactive halos, Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23 (1973) 347362.
18. Gentry, R.V. et al., Radiohalos in coalified wood: new evidence relating to time of uranium
introduction and coalification, Science 194 (15 Oct. 1976) 315318.
19. Gentry, R. V., Radiohalos in a Radiochronological and cosmological perspective, Science 184 (5
Apr. 1974) 6266.
20. Gentry, R. V., Creations Tiny Mystery, Earth Science Associates (1986) P.O. Box 12067, Knoxville,
TN 37912-0067, pp. 2337, 5159, 6162.
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21. Vardiman, L.The Age of the Earths Atmosphere: A Study of the Helium Flux through the Atmosphere,
Institute for Creation Research (1990) P.O.Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021.
22. Gentry, R. V. et al., Differential helium retention in zircons: implications for nuclear waste
management, Geophys. Res. Lett. 9 (Oct. 1982) 11291130. See also ref. 20, pp. 169170.
23. Deevey, E.S., The human population, Scientific American 203 (Sept. 1960) 194204.
24. Marshak, A., Exploring the mind of Ice Age man, Nat. Geog. 147 (Jan. 1975) 6489.
25. Dritt, J. O., Mans earliest beginnings: discrepancies in the evolutionary timetable, Proc. 2nd
Internat. Conf. on Creat., Vol. I., Creation Science Fellowship (1990) pp. 7378. Address, ref.
12. Creation Science Fellowship of New Mexico, Inc. P.O. Box 10550, Albuquerque, NM 87184
DRH September, 1999
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CREATED LIGHT?
Perhaps the most commonly used explanation is that God created light on its way, so that Adam could
see the stars immediately without having to wait years for the light from even the closest ones to reach the
Earth. While we should not limit the power of God, this has some rather immense difficulties.
It would mean that whenever we look at the behavior of a very distant object, what we see happening
never happened at all. For instance, say we see an object a million light-years away which appears to be
rotating; that is, the light we receive in our telescopes carries this information recording this behavior.
However, according to this explanation, the light we are now receiving did not come from the star,
but was created en route, so to speak.
This would mean that for a 10,000-year-old universe, that anything we see happening beyond about
10,000 light-years away is actually part of a gigantic picture show of things that have not actually
happened, showing us objects which may not even exist.
To explain this problem further, consider an exploding star (supernova) at, say, an accurately measured
100,000 light-years away. Remember we are using this explanation in a 10,000-year-old universe. As
the astronomer on Earth watches this exploding star, he is not just receiving a beam of light. If that
were all, then it would be no problem at all to say that God could have created a whole chain of
photons (light particles/waves) already on their way.
However, what the astronomer receives is also a particular, very specific pattern of variation within
the light, showing him/her the changes that one would expect to accompany such an explosiona
predictable sequence of events involving neutrinos, visible light, X-rays and gamma-rays. The light
carries information recording an apparently real event. The astronomer is perfectly justified in
interpreting this message as representing an actual realitythat there really was such an object, which
exploded according to the laws of physics, brightened, emitted X-rays, dimmed, and so on, all in
accord with those same physical laws.
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Everything he sees is consistent with this, including the spectral patterns in the light from the star
giving us a chemical signature of the elements contained in it. Yet the light created en route explanation means that this recorded message of events, transmitted through space, had to be contained
within the light beam from the moment of its creation, or planted into the light beam at a later date,
without ever having originated from that distant point. (If it had started from the starassuming that
there really was such a starit would still be 90,000 light years away from Earth.)
To create such a detailed series of signals in light beams reaching Earth, signals which seem to have
come from a series of real events but in fact did not, has no conceivable purpose. Worse, it is
like saying that God created fossils in rocks to fool us, or even test our faith, and that they dont
represent anything real (a real animal or plant that lived and died in the past). This would be a
strange deception.
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A CLUE
Let us briefly give a hint as to how the new cosmology seems to solve the starlight problem before
explaining some preliminary items in a little more detail. Consider that the time taken for something
to travel a given distance is the distance divided by the speed it is traveling. That is:
Time = Distance (divided by) Speed
When this is applied to light from distant stars, the time calculates out to be millions of years. Some
have sought to challenge the distances, but this is a very unlikely answer.7
Astronomers use many different methods to measure the distances, and no informed creationist
astronomer would claim that any errors would be so vast that billions of light-years could be reduced
to thousands, for example. There is good evidence that our own Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light
years across!
If the speed of light (c) has not changed, the only thing left untouched in the equation is time
itself. In fact, Einsteins relativity theories have been telling the world for decades that time is not
a constant.
Two things are believed (with experimental support) to distort time in relativity theory one is speed
and the other is gravity. Einsteins general theory of relativity, the best theory of gravity we have at
present, indicates that gravity distorts time.
This effect has been measured experimentally, many times. Clocks at the top of tall buildings, where
gravity is slightly less, run faster than those at the bottom, just as predicted by the equations of
general relativity (GR).8
When the concentration of matter is very large or dense enough, the gravitational distortion can be
so immense that even light cannot escape.9 The equations of GR show that at the invisible boundary
surrounding such a concentration of matter (called the event horizon, the point at which light rays
trying to escape the enormous pull of gravity and bend back on themselves), time literally stands still.
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CAUTION
While this is exciting news, all theories of fallible men, no matter how well they seem to fit the
data, are subject to revision or abandonment in the light of future discoveries. What we can say
is that at this point a plausible mechanism has been demonstrated, with considerable observational
and theoretical support.
What if no one had ever thought of the possibility of gravitational time dilation? Many might
have felt forced to agree with those scientists (including some Christians) that there was no possible
solutionthe vast ages are fact, and the Bible must be reinterpreted (massaged) or increasingly
rejected. Many have in fact been urging Christians to abandon the Bibles clear teaching of a
recent creation because of these undeniable facts. This reinterpretation also means having to accept
that there were billions of years of death, disease, and bloodshed before Adam, thus eroding the
Creation/Fall/Restoration framework within which the gospel is presented in the Bible.
However, even without this new idea, such an approach would still have been wrong-headed. The
authority of the Bible should never be compromised as mankinds scientific proposals. One little
previously unknown fact, or one change in a starting assumption, can drastically alter the whole
picture so that what was fact is no longer so.
This is worth remembering when dealing with those other areas of difficulty which, despite the
substantial evidence for Genesis creation, still remain. Only God possesses infinite knowledge. By
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basing our scientific research on the assumption that His Word is true (instead of the assumption
that it is wrong or irrelevant) our scientific theories are much more likely, in the long run, to come
to accurately represent reality.
FOOTNOTES
1. T.G. Norman and B. Setterfield, The Atomic Constants, Light and Time (privately published,
1990).
2. D. Russell Humphreys, Progress Toward a Young-Earth Relativistic Cosmology, Proceedings 3rd
ICC, Pittsburgh, 1994, pp. 267286.
3. J. Byl, On Time Dilation in Cosmology, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 1997, 34(1):2632.
4. D.R. Humphreys, Its Just a Matter of Time, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 1997,
34(1):3234.
5. S.R. Conner and D.N. Page, Starlight and Time is the Big Bang, CEN Technical Journal, 1998,
12(2):174194.
6. D.R. Humphreys, New Vistas of Space-time Rebut the Critics, CEN Technical Journal, 1998,
12(2):195212.
7. Many billions of stars exist, many just like our own sun, according to the analysis of the light
coming from them. Such numbers of stars have to be distributed through a huge volume of space,
otherwise we would all be fried.
8. The demonstrable usefulness of GR in physics can be separated from certain philosophical
baggage that some have illegitimately attached to it, and to which some Christians have objected.
9. Such an object is called a black hole.
10. Genesis 1:1; Ecclesiastes 3:11; Isaiah 26:4; Romans 1:20; 1 Timothy 1:17; and Hebrews 11:3.
Interestingly, according to GR, time does not exist without matter.
11. For example, Isaiah 42:5; Jeremiah 10:12; Zechariah 12:1.
12. D. Russell Humphreys, Starlight and Time (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1994).
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People who ask about carbon-14 (14C) dating usually want to know about the radiometric dating
methods that are claimed to give millions and billions of yearscarbon dating can only give
thousands of years. People wonder how millions of years could be squeezed into the Biblical account
of history.
Clearly, such huge time periods cannot be fitted into the Bible without compromising what the
Bible says about the goodness of God and the origin of sin, death and sufferingthe reason Jesus
came into the world.
Christians, by definition, take the statements of Jesus Christ seriously. He said, But from the
beginning of the creation God made them male and female (Mark 10:6). This only makes sense with
a time-line beginning with the creation week thousands of years ago. It makes no sense at all if man
appeared at the end of billions of years.
We will deal with carbon dating first and then with the other dating methods.
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gets smaller. So, we have a clock which starts ticking the moment something dies.
Obviously, this works only for things which were once living. It cannot be used to date volcanic
rocks, for example.
The rate of decay of 14C is such that half of an amount will convert back to 14N in 5,730 years (plus
or minus 40 years). This is the half-life. So, in two half-lives, or 11,460 years, only one-quarter
of that in living organisms at present, then it has a theoretical age of 11,460 years. Anything over
about 50,000 years old, should theoretically have no detectable 14C left. That is why radiocarbon
dating cannot give millions of years. In fact, if a sample contains 14C, it is good evidence that it is
not millions of years old.
However, things are not quite so simple. First, plants discriminate against carbon dioxide containing
14
C. That is, they take up less than would be expected and so they test older than they really are.
Furthermore, different types of plants discriminate differently. This also has to be corrected for.2
Second, the ratio of 14C/12C in the atmosphere has not been constantfor example, it was higher
before the industrial era when the massive burning of fossil fuels released a lot of carbon dioxide
that was depleted in 14C. This would make things which died at that time appear older in terms
of carbon dating. Then there was a rise in 14CO2 with the advent of atmospheric testing of atomic
bombs in the 1950s.3 This would make things carbon-dated from that time appear younger than
their true age.
Measurement of 14C in historically dated objects (e.g., seeds in the graves of historically dated tombs)
enables the level of 14C in the atmosphere at that time to be estimated, and so partial calibration of
the clock is possible. Accordingly, carbon dating carefully applied to items from historical times can
be useful. However, even with such historical calibration, archaeologists do not regard 14C dates as
absolute because of frequent anomalies. They rely more on dating methods that link into historical
records.
Outside the range of recorded history, calibration of the 14C clock is not possible.4
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Creationist researchers have suggested that dates of 35,00045,000 years should be re-calibrated to
the Biblical date of the Flood.6 Such a re-calibration makes sense of anomalous data from carbon
datingfor example, very discordant dates for different parts of a frozen musk ox carcass from Alaska
and an inordinately slow rate of accumulation of ground sloth dung pellets in the older layers of a
cave where the layers were carbon dated.7
Also, volcanoes emit much CO2 depleted in 14C. Since the Flood was accompanied by much
volcanism, fossils formed in the early post-Flood period would give radiocarbon ages older than
they really are.
In summary, the carbon-14 method, when corrected for the effects of the Flood, can give useful
results, but needs to be applied carefully. It does not give dates of millions of years and when corrected
properly fits well with the Biblical Flood.
BAD DATES
When a date differs from that expected, researchers readily invent excuses for rejecting the result. The
common application of such posterior reasoning shows that radiometric dating has serious problems.
Woodmorappe cites hundreds of examples of excuses used to explain bad dates.9
For example, researchers applied posterior reasoning to the dating of Australopithecus ramidus fossils.10
Most samples of basalt closest to the fossil-bearing strata give dates of about 23 Ma (Mega annum,
million years) by the argon-argon method. The authors decided that was too old, according to their
beliefs about the place of the fossils in the evolutionary grand scheme of things. So they looked at
some basalt further removed from the fossils and selected 17 of 26 samples to get an acceptable
maximum age of 4.4 Ma. The other nine samples again gave much older dates but the authors decided
they must be contaminated and discarded them. That is how radiometric dating works. It is very
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much driven by the existing long-age world view that pervades academia today.
A similar story surrounds the dating of the primate skull known as KNM-ER 1470.11 This started
with an initial 212 to 230 Ma, which, according to the fossils, was considered way off the mark
(humans werent around then). Various other attempts were made to date the volcanic rocks in the
area. Over the years an age of 2.9 Ma was settled upon because of the agreement between several
different published studies (although the studies involved selection of good from bad results, just
like Australopithecus ramidus, above).
However, preconceived notions about human evolution could not cope with a skull like 1470 being
that old. A study of pig fossils in Africa readily convinced most anthropologists that the 1470
skull was much younger. After this was widely accepted, further studies of the rocks brought the
radiometric age down to about 1.9 Maagain several studies confirmed this date. Such is the
dating game.
Are we suggesting that evolutionists are conspiring to massage the data to get what they want? No,
not generally. It is simply that all observations must fit the prevailing paradigm. The paradigm, or
belief system, of molecules-to-man evolution over eons of time, is so strongly entrenched it is not
questionedit is a fact. So every observation must fit this paradigm. Unconsciously, the researchers,
who are supposedly objective scientists in the eyes of the public, select the observations to fit the
basic belief system.
We must remember that the past is not open to the normal processes of experimental science, that is,
repeatable experiments in the present. A scientist cannot do experiments on events that happened in
the past. Scientists do not measure the age of rocks, they measure isotope concentrations, and these
can be measured extremely accurately. However, the age is calculated using assumptions about the
past that cannot be proven.
We should remember Gods admonition to Job, Where were you when I laid the foundations of
the Earth? (Job 38:4).
Those involved with unrecorded history gather information in the present and construct stories about
the past. The level of proof demanded for such stories seems to be much less than for studies in the
empirical sciences, such as physics, chemistry, molecular biology, physiology, etc.
Williams, an expert in the environmental fate of radioactive elements, identified seventeen flaws in
the isotope dating reported in just three widely respected seminal papers that supposedly established
the age of the Earth at 4.6 billion years.12 John Woodmorappe has produced an incisive critique of
these dating methods.13 He exposes hundreds of myths that have grown up around the techniques.
He shows that the few good dates left after the bad dates are filtered out could easily be explained
as fortunate coincidences.
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Other techniques, such as the use of isochrons, make different assumptions about starting conditions, but there is a growing recognition that such foolproof techniques can also give bad dates. So
data are again selected according to what the researcher already believes about the age of the rock.
Geologist Dr Steve Austin sampled basalt from the base of the Grand Canyon strata and from the lava
that spilled over the edge of the canyon. By evolutionary reckoning, the latter should be a billion years
younger than the basalt from the bottom. Standard laboratories analyzed the isotopes. The rubidiumstrontium isochron technique suggested that the recent lava flow was 270 Ma older than the basalts
beneath the Grand Canyonan impossibility.
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Laboratories that measure 14C would like a source of organic material with zero 14C to use as a blank
to check that their lab procedures do not add 14C. Coal is an obvious candidate because the youngest
coal is supposed to be millions of years old, and most of it is supposed to be tens or hundreds of
millions of years old. Such old coal should be devoid of 14C. It isnt. No source of coal has been found
that completely lacks 14C.
Fossil wood found in Upper Permian rock that is supposedly 250 Ma old still contained 14C.23
Recently, a sample of wood found in rock classified as middle Triassic, supposedly some 230 million
years old, gave a 14C date of 33,720 years, plus or minus 430 years.24 The accompanying checks
showed that the 14C date was not due to contamination and that the date was valid, within the
standard (long ages) understanding of this dating system.
It is an unsolved mystery to evolutionists as to why coal has 14C in it,25, or wood supposedly millions
of years old still has 14C present, but it makes perfect sense in a creationist world view.
Evidence for a rapid formation of geological strata, as in the Biblical Flood. Some of the evidences
are: lack of erosion between rock layers supposedly separated in age by many millions of years;
lack of disturbance of rock strata by biological activity (worms, roots, etc.); lack of soil layers;
polystrate fossils (which traverse several rock layers verticallythese could not have stood vertically for eons of time while they slowly got buried); thick layers of rock bent without fracturing,
indicating that the rock was all soft when bent; and more. For more, see books by geologists
Morris26 and Austin.27
Red blood cells and hemoglobin have been found in some (unfossilized!) dinosaur bone. But these
could not last more than a few thousand yearscertainly not the 65 Ma since the last dinosaurs
lived, according to evolutionists.28
The Earths magnetic field has been decaying so fast that it looks like it is less than 10,000 years
old. Rapid reversals during the Flood year and fluctuations shortly after would have caused the
field energy to drop even faster.29
Radioactive decay releases helium into the atmosphere, but not much is escaping. The total
amount in the atmosphere is 1/2000th of that expected if the universe is really billions of years
old. This helium originally escaped from rocks. This happens quite fast, yet so much helium is still
in some rocks that it has not had time to escapecertainly not billions of years.30
The moon is slowly receding from the Earth at about 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) per year, and this
rate would have been greater in the past. But even if the moon had started receding from being
in contact with the Earth, it would have taken only 1.37 billion years to reach its present distance
from the Earth. This gives a maximum age of the moon, not the actual age. This is far too young
for evolutionists who claim the moon is 4.6 billion years old. It is also much younger than the
radiometric dates assigned to moon rocks.32
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Salt is entering the sea much faster than it is escaping. The sea is not nearly salty enough for this
to have been happening for billions of years. Even granting generous assumptions to evolutionists,
the sea could not be more than 62 Ma years oldfar younger than the billions of years believed
by the evolutionists. Again, this indicates a maximum age, not the actual age.33
Dr Russell Humphreys gives other processes inconsistent with billions of years in the pamphlet
Evidence for a Young World (see p15).34
Creationists cannot prove the age of the Earth using a particular scientific method, any more than
evolutionists can. They realize that all science is tentative because we do not have all the data,
especially when dealing with the past. This is true of both creationist and evolutionist scientific
argumentsevolutionists have had to abandon many proofs for evolution just as creationists have
also had to modify their arguments. The atheistic evolutionist W.B. Provine admitted: Most of
what I learned of the field [evolutionary biology] in graduate (1964-68) school is either wrong or
significantly changed.35
Creationists understand the limitations of dating methods better than evolutionists who claim that
they can use processes observed in the present to prove that the Earth is billions of years old.
In reality, all dating methods, including those that point to a young Earth, rely on unprovable
assumptions.
Creationists ultimately date the Earth historically using the chronology of the Bible. This is because
they believe that this is an accurate eyewitness account of world history, which bears the evidence
within it that it is the Word of God, and therefore totally reliable and error-free.
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Another currently popular dating method is the uranium-lead concordia technique. This effectively
combines the two uranium-lead decay series into one diagram. Results that lie on the concordia
curve have the same age according to the two lead series and are called concordant. However, the
results from zircons (a type of gemstone), for example, generally lie off the concordia curvethey
are discordant. Numerous models, or stories, have been developed to explain such data.38 However,
such exercises in story-telling can hardly be considered as objective science that proves an old Earth.
Again, the stories are evaluated according to their own success in agreeing with the existing long
ages belief system.
Andrew Snelling has suggested that fractionation (sorting) of elements in the molten state in the
Earths mantle could be a significant factor in explaining the ratios of isotope concentrations which
are interpreted as ages.
As long ago as 1966, Nobel Prize nominee Melvin Cook, professor of metallurgy at the University of
Utah, pointed out evidence that lead isotope ratios, for example, may involve alteration by important
factors other than radioactive decay.39 Cook noted that, in ores from the Katanga mine, for example,
there was an abundance of lead-208, a stable isotope, but no Thorium-232 as a source for lead-208.
Thorium has a long half-life (decays very slowly) and is not easily moved out of the rock, so if
the lead-208 came from thorium decay, some thorium should still be there. The concentrations of
lead-206, lead-207, and lead-208 suggest that the lead-208 came about by neutron capture conversion
of lead-206 to lead-207 to lead-208. When the isotope concentrations are adjusted for such conversions,
the ages calculated are reduced from some 600 Ma to recent. Other ore bodies seemed to show similar
evidence. Cook recognized that the current understanding of nuclear physics did not seem to allow
for such a conversion under normal conditions, but he presents evidence that such did happen, and
even suggests how it could happen.
ORPHAN RADIOHALOS
Decaying radioactive particles in solid rock cause spherical zones of damage to the surrounding crystal
structure. A speck of radioactive element such as Uranium-238, for example, will leave a sphere of
discoloration of characteristically different radius for each element it produces in its decay chain to
lead-206.41 Viewed in cross-section with a microscope, these spheres appear as rings called radiohalos.
Dr Gentry has researched radiohalos for many years, and published his results in leading scientific
journals.42
Some of the intermediate decay productssuch as the polonium isotopeshave very short half-lives
(they decay quickly). For example, 218Po has a half-life of just 3 minutes. Curiously, rings formed by
polonium decay are often found embedded in crystals without the parent uranium halos. Now the
polonium has to get into the rock before the rock solidifies, but it cannot derive from a uranium
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speck in the solid rock, otherwise there would be a uranium halo. Either the polonium was created
(primordial, not derived from uranium), or there have been radical changes in decay rates in the past.
43
Gentry has addressed all attempts to criticize his work. There have been many attempts, because
the orphan halos speak of conditions in the past, either at creation or after, perhaps even during the
Flood, which do not fit with the uniformitarian view of the past, which is the basis of the radiometric
dating systems. Whatever process was responsible for the halos could be a key also to understanding
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radiometric dating.
CONCLUSION
There are many lines of evidence that the radiometric dates are not the objective evidence for an old
Earth that many claim, and that the world is really only thousands of years old. We dont have all the
answers, but we do have the sure testimony of the Word of God to the true history of the world.
FOOTNOTES
1. Also known as isotope or radioisotope dating.
2. Today, a stable carbon isotope, 13C , is measured as an indication of the level of discrimination
against 14C.
3. Radiation from atomic testing, like cosmic rays, causes the conversion of 14N to 14C.
4. Tree ring dating (dendrochronology) has been used in an attempt to extend the calibration
of the calibration of carbon-14 dating earlier than historical records allow, but this depends
on temporal placement of fragments of wood (from long dead trees) using carbon-14 dating,
assuming straight-line extrapolation backwards. Then cross-matching of ring patterns is used to
calibrate the carbon clocka somewhat circular process which does not give an independent
calibration of the carbon dating system.
5. K.L. McDonald and R.H. Gunst, An Analysis of the Earths Magnetic Field from 1835 to 1965,
ESSA Technical Report IER 46-IES, 1965, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C.,
p. 14.
6. B.J. Taylor, Carbon Dioxide in the Antediluvian Atmosphere, Creation Research Society Quarterly,
1994, 30(4):193-197.
7. R.H. Brown, Correlation of C-14 Age with Real Time, Creation Research Society Quarterly, 1992,
29:45-47. Musk ox muscle was dated at 24,000 years, but hair was dated at 17,000 years.
Corrected dates bring the difference in age approximately within the life span of an ox. With
sloth cave dung, standard carbon dates of the lower layers suggested less than 2 pellets per year
were produced by the sloths. Correcting the dates increased the number to a more realistic 1.4
per day.
8. J. Woodmorappe, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods San Diego, CA: Institute for Creation
Research, 1999.
9. Ibid.
10. G. WoldeGabriel et al., Ecological and Temporal Placement of Early Pliocene Hominids at
Aramis, Ethiopia, Nature, 1994, 371:330-333.
11. M. Lubenow, The Pigs Took It All, Creation, 1995, 17(3):36-38.
M. Lubenow, Bones of Contention (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993), pp. 247-266.
12. A.R. Williams, Long-age Isotope Dating Short on Credibility, CEN Technical Journal, 1992,
6(1):2-5.
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32. D. DeYoung, The Earth-Moon System, Proc. Second ICC, 1990, 2:79-84, R.E.
Walsh and C.L. Brooks, editors.
J.D. Sarfati, The Moon: The Light That Rules the Night, Creation, 1998, 20(4):36-39.
33. S.A. Austin and D.R. Humphreys, The Seas Missing Salt: A Dilemma for Evolutionists,
Proc. Second ICC, 1990, 2:17-33.
J.D. Sarfati, Salty Seas: Evidence for a Young Earth, Creation, 1999, 21(1):16-17.
34. Russell Humphreys, Evidence for a Young World, Answers in Genesis, 1999.
35. A review of Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science (National Academy of Science
USA, 1998) by Dr Will B. Provine, online at http://fp.bio.utk.edu/darwin/NAS_guidebook/
provine_1.html, February 18, 1999.
36. See Woodmorappe, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods, for one such thorough evaluation.
37. Y.F. Zheng, Influence of the Nature of Initial Rb-Sr System on Isochron Validity, Chemical
Geology, 1989, 80:1-16 (p. 14).
38. E. Jager and J.C. Hunziker, editors, Lectures in Isotope Geology, U-Th-Pb Dating of Minerals, by
D. Gebauer and M. Grunenfelder, New York: Springer Verlag, 1979, pp. 105-131.
39. M.A. Cook, Prehistory and Earth Models, London: Max Parrish, 1966.
40. R.V. Gentry, Creations Tiny Mystery, Knoxville, TN: Earth Science Associates, 1986.
41. Only those that undergo alpha decay (releasing a helium nucleus).
42. Gentry, Creations Tiny Mystery.
43. Ibid.
K.P. Wise, letter to the editor, and replies by M. Armitage and R. Gentry, CEN Technical Journal,
1998, 12(3):285-90.
44. An international team of creationist scientists is actively pursuing a creationist understanding of
radioisotope dating. Known as the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) group, it
combines the skills of various physicists and geologists to enable a multi-disciplinary approach to
the subject. Interesting insights are likely to come from such a group.
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Geological conflict:
Young radiocarbon date for ancient fossil wood challenges
fossil dating
by Andrew Snelling
First published in:
Creation 22(2):4447
MarchMay 2000
For most people, the discovery of fossilised wood in a quarry would not be newsworthy. However,
some pieces recently found embedded in limestone alongside some well-known index fossils (see box)
for the Jurassic period (supposedly 142205.7 million years ago) have proved highly significant.
It is not generally realised that index fossils are still crucial to the millions-of-years geological dating,
in spite of the advent of radioactive dating techniques. Not all locations have rocks suitable for
radioactive dating, but in any case, if a radioactive date disagrees with a fossil date then it is the
latter which usually has precedence.
Finding this fossil wood in Jurassic limestone suggested the possibility of testing for the presence of
radiocarbon (14C). Most geologists, however, would not bother with such tests because they wouldnt
expect any 14C to still exist. With a half-life of only 5,570 years, no 14C should be detectable after
about 50,000 years, let alone millions of years, even with the most sensitive equipment. So this
fossilised wood from the Marlstone Rock Bed of Jurassic age had potential for testing the validity of
the fossil dating technique underpinning modern geology.
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Figure 1: Locality map showing the outcrop pattern of the Marlstone Rock Bed across southern
England (reference 1, main article).
Figure 2: Locality map showing the distribution of the Marlstone Rock Bed west of Banbury, and
the Horton Quarries at Edge Hill near the village of Ratley.
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Three samples of fossil wood were collected from the south wall of Hornton Quarries, one from
immediately adjacent to the belemnite fossil (Figure 5 below) during the first visit, and two from
locations nearby during the second visit. All the fossil wood samples were from short broken lengths
of what were probably branches of trees fossilised in situ. The woody internal structure was clearly
evident, thus the samples were not the remains of roots that had grown into this weathered rock from
trees on the present land surface. When sampled, the fossil wood readily splintered, diagnostic of it
still being woody in spite of its impregnation with iron minerals during fossilisation.
Figure 5: Fossil wood in the top section of the Marlstone Rock Bed exposed in the south wall of
the Hornton Quarries at Edge Hill. The pen is not only for scale, but points to an end-on circular
profile of a belemnite fossil sitting directly underneath the fossil wood (sampled as UK-HB-1).
Pieces of all three samples were sent for radiocarbon (14C) analyses to Geochron Laboratories in
Cambridge, Boston (USA), while as a cross-check, a piece of the first sample was also sent to the
Antares Mass Spectrometry Laboratory at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
(ANSTO), Lucas Heights near Sydney (Australia). Both laboratories are reputable and internationally
recognised, the former a commercial laboratory and the latter a major research laboratory.
The staff at these laboratories were not told exactly where the samples came from, or their supposed
evolutionary age, to ensure that there would be no resultant bias.
Both laboratories used the more sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) technique for radiocarbon analyses, recognised as producing reliable results even on samples with minute quantities of carbon.
THE RESULTS
The radiocarbon (14C) results are listed in Table 1. Obviously, there was detectable radiocarbon in
all the fossil wood samples, the calculated 14C ages ranging from 20,700 1,200 to 28,820 350
years BP (Before Present).
For sample UK-HB-1, collected from on top of the belemnite index fossil (Figure 5), the results
from the two laboratories are reasonably close to one another within the error margins, and when
averaged yield a 14C age almost identical (within the error margins) to the 22,730 170 years BP
of sample UK-HB-2.
Alternatively, if all four results on the three samples are averaged, the 14C age is almost identical (within
the error margins) to the Geochron result for UK-HB-1 of 24,005 600 years BP. This suggests that a
reasonable estimate for the 14C age of this fossil wood would be 23,00023,500 years BP.
Quite obviously this radiocarbon age is drastically short of the age of 189 million years for the index
fossils found with the fossil wood, and thus for the host rock.
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Of course, uniformitarian geologists would not even test this fossil wood for radiocarbon. They
dont expect any to be in it, since they would regard it as about 189 million years old due to
the age of the index fossils. No detectable 14C would remain in wood older than about 50,000
years. Undoubtedly, they would thus suggest that the radiocarbon, which has been unequivocally
demonstrated to be in this fossil wood, is due somehow to contamination. Such a criticism is totally
unjustified (see box).
Table 1: Radiocarbon (14C) analytical results for fossil wood samples, Marlstone Rock Bed,
Hornton Quarries, England. Return to section results.
CONCLUSIONS
The fossil wood in the top three metres of the Marlstone Rock Bed near Banbury, England, has
been 14C dated at 23,00023,500 years BP. However, based on evolutionary and uniformitarian
assumptions, the ammonite and belemnite index fossils in this rock date it at about 189 million
years. Obviously, both dates cant be right!
Furthermore, it is somewhat enigmatic that broken pieces of wood from land plants were buried and
fossilised in a limestone alongside marine ammonite and belemnite fossils. Uniformitarians consider
limestone to have been slowly deposited over countless thousands of years on a shallow ocean floor
where wood from trees is not usually found.
However, the radiocarbon dating of the fossil wood has emphatically demonstrated the complete
failure of the evolutionary and uniformitarian assumptions underpinning geological dating.
A far superior explanation for this limestone and the mixture of terrestrial wood and marine shellfish
fossils it contains is extremely rapid burial in a turbulent watery catastrophe that affected both the
land and ocean floor, such as the recent global Biblical Flood.
The 23,00023,500 year BP 14C date for this fossil wood is not inconsistent with it being buried
about 4,500 years ago during the Flood, the original plants having grown before the Flood.
A stronger magnetic field before, and during, the Flood would have shielded the Earth more
effectively from incoming cosmic rays,7 so there would have been much less radiocarbon in the
atmosphere then, and thus much less in the vegetation. Since the laboratories calculated the 14C ages
assuming that the level of atmospheric radiocarbon in the past has been roughly the same as the level
in 1950, the resultant radiocarbon ages are much greater than the true age.8,9
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Thus, correctly understood, this fossil wood and its 14C analyses cast grave doubts upon the index
fossil dating method and its uniformitarian and evolutionary presuppositions.
On the other hand, these results are totally consistent with the details of the recent global Genesis
Flood, as recorded in the Creators Wordthe Bible.
Snelling, A., Stumping old-age dogma: radiocarbon in an ancient fossil tree stump casts doubt on
traditional rock/fossil dating, Creation 20(4):4851, 1998.
Snelling, A., Dating dilemma: fossil wood in ancient sandstone, Creation 21(3):3941, 1999.
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Among well-known index fossils are ammonites (extinct, coiled-shell cephalopods, marine molluscs
similar to todays Nautilus), and the belemnites (extinct, straight-shell cephalopods).2,3 Both are fossils
of squid-like creatures, common to abundant in so-called Mesozoic rocks. They are very important
index fossils for dating and correlation of rock layers, for example, across Europe, particularly for the
so-called Cretaceous and Jurassic periods of the geological time-scale,2,3,4 which are claimed to span
65142 and 142205.7 million years ago respectively.5 However, these index fossils have not been
dated directly by radioactive techniques.
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sample compared to the PDB (Pee Dee Belemnite) standarda fossil belemnite from the
Cretaceous Pee Dee Formation in South Carolina, USA. The units used are parts per thousand,
written as or per mil (compared with parts per hundred, written as % or per cent). Organic
carbon from the different varieties of life gives different characteristic d13CPDB values.
3. Hoefs, J., Stable Isotope Geochemistry, 4th edition, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 133134, 1997.
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Radio-dating in rubble
The lava dome at Mount St Helens debunks dating myths
by Keith Swenson
First published in:
Creation 23(3):2325
JuneAugust 2001
Radioisotope dating conveys an aura of reliability both to the general public and professional
scientists. In most peoples minds it is the best proof for millions of years of Earth history. But is the
method all its cracked up to be? Can we really trust it? The lava dome at Mount St Helens provides a
rare opportunity for putting radioisotope dating to the test.
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2. Dalrymple, G.B., 40Ar/36Ar analysis of historic lava flows, Earth and Planetary Science Letters
6:4755, 1969.
3. Woodmorappe, J., The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods, ICR, El Cajon, California, 1999.
Geology of the Grand Canyon showing calculated radioisotope dates (after Austin3).
Is this dating failure from Mount St Helens an isolated case of radioisotope dating giving wrong
1
results for rocks of known age? Certainly not! Dalrymple, one of the big names in radioactive
dating [and a self-confessed intermediate between an atheist and agnostic], lists a number of cases
of wrong potassium-argon ages for historic lava flows (Table A). There are many other examples of
obviously wrong dates. Only recently, Creation magazine reported that ages up to 3.5 million years
2
were obtained for lava flows that erupted in New Zealand from 1949 to 1975.
One sobering example comes from the Grand Canyon in Arizona (see diagram, left). The Cardenas
Basalt in the bottom of the canyon is an igneous rock layer suitable for radioisotope technology. When
dated by the rubidium-strontium isochron method, the Cardenas Basalt yielded an age of 1.07 billion
3
years. Most geologists consider this a good date because it agrees with their evolutionary chronology.
However, we know the date cant be right, because it conflicts with Biblical chronology.
It is a different story when the same rubidium-strontium method is used to date lava from volcanoes
on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. We know these volcanoes are some of the youngest rocks in
the canyon, because they spilled lava into the canyon after it had been eroded. Geologists generally
think that these volcanoes erupted only a million years or so ago. The measured age? 1.34 billion
3
years. If we were to believe the dating method, the top of the canyon would be older than the bottom!
Of course, geologists dont believe the result in this case, because it does not agree with what they
believe to be the right age. We dont agree with the result either. Such an obviously conflicting age
speaks eloquently of the great problems inherent in radioisotope dating. It also speaks volumes about
the way dates are accepted or rejected by the geological community.
Evolution Rebuttals Why does it Matter? How Old is the Earth?
Supposed Evidence Design & Purpose Voices for Creation Refuting Evolution
www.AnswersInGenesis.org
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