Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Part II.

Not quite. The cave drawings were dated with ¹⁴C ⁽¹⁾, from artifacts found in the cave that had been living plant material before being brought into the caves by the artists.What the lake varves validate is that the ¹⁴C dates were correct ... if not a little too young for the artifacts involved.They confirm the dates in the caves by validating the dating procedure and results with actual annual layers that date to the same age with very little error.Note that the current limit to ¹⁴C dating is around 50,000 years ago (after which time there is too little ¹⁴C left to be statistically significant - due to the half life). This is well within that limit. ⁽¹⁾ usually more one method is used for control, and both have to agree for valid dates.What the lake varves actually do is correlate the ¹⁴C with the variations in atmospheric ¹⁴N and cosmic radiation (how ¹⁴C is generated). This means fewer assumptions in the date answers.This variation in the data also correlates with climate changes that show up in other dating methods (like the tree rings and the ice cores). You have multiple correlations independantly agreeing on the result, which makes it very robust.Enjoy.

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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Very close, note that these are not mineral fossils (organic material replaced by minerals) but the actual organics are still in situ so that the ¹⁴C is available. Sometimes the word fossil conveys an incorrect image.Yes: one set data has age from counting annual layers of diatoms and clay, the other set data has age from ¹⁴C measurements on organic objects found buried in the layers. There is a strong correlation - it is not linear and varies a little from a straight line, but there is very little scatter (points off the curve) that would indicate a bad measuring system: the variations are due to climate and are predicted based on our knowledge of the formation of ¹⁴C.Enjoy

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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An "interglacial" is a period between glacial periods. riiiiight, eh? I think you got it on your next post. let me know if you still need more.Interglacial - Wikipediaalso see Climatology - Wikipedia

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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Not quite, Methusalah is a special case where the rings from one tree extend back to 4,844 years before it was cut down.Generally what the dendrochronologists do is match up tree ring data from different samples and build up a databank of rings based on climate growth patterns. This is possible because each year is different for length and warmth of the growing period and of the non-growing period. This used to be done by scientists looking through microscopes and making detailed measurements, this is now computerized.Where this is used to date artifacts, an object from a known tree type is measured for its pattern of ring growth and this is then compared against the databank until all the rings match the pattern of the object to the databank: this gives the age of the artifact. These databanks have been built up over many years of work and in many different types of trees. They all share the same global climate pattern of long to short summers and winters. They share this pattern with the Methusalah tree and with the lake varves.Hope that helps.Good questions. Enjoy.

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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Sorry, first response was more general than your question. The age of the trees was determined by matching the tree ring growth patterns with other samples where they knew the ages. Some of them are still standing (though dead) and not lying on the ground.Note that they usually take 3 or 4 cores to count the rings from living trees and only in special cases cut them down to count the rings. There are other trees there that could be older than the Methusalah tree that just haven't been sampled yet.Enjoy.

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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Some of my examples were from S.American glaciers. Yes. There really is overwhelming evidence, imho, of an old earth from a number of sources that are really more accessible to the average person than the data which shows that the earth revolves around the sun.Thanks. Read and bookmarked oh red booted wonder.

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Just wondering how you are coming on this issue. Let me know of any more questions:there are no stupid questionsThanks

and all they need to do is find diamonds near a radioactive source - same as coal and uranium problem.also 45k to 50k is the limit of ¹⁴C methods (depends on method used -- and I would "trust" AiG to use the lesser accurate methods)This message has been edited by RAZD, 10*25*2005 06:25 PM

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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(sigh) another broken link in an old post. Thanks, I have now fixed it.Try this site (several linked pages with some good graphics):
How Carbon-14 Dating Works | HowStuffWorks Try this site for some explanations of the problems that scientists know about (and creatortionistas exploit) -- please note the title:
Radiometric Dating - A Christian Perspective
Radiometric DatingThis article is VERRRRY LOOOOOONG (every time I visit it seems he has added whole new sections) and he discusses all forms of radiometric dating, so you may want to search the page for where "carbon" is discussed to read just those sections initially. You may want to print it out to read later. I'll assume you do mean ¹⁴C rather than all C (¹²C, ¹³C and ¹⁴C), as a pure diamond would be nothing but carbon ... ¹²C is the normal everyday version and the other two are both much much smaller components of the total carbon.¹⁴C is the one used for dating.One of the problems here is contamination, either in the ground or after the fact, by other radioactive substances that then cause a false measurement. Wiens discusses this as well.Gotta go. more later. This message has been edited by RAZD, 10*25*2005 09:12 PM

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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There are many things that indicate climate trends and patterns to the paleobotanists and paleoclimatologists, from numbers and kinds of pollen to types of flora and fauna. Google on {"Younger Dryas" climate} (use the quotes as shown) and you will find information about a specific cooler climate period about 12,900 - 11,500 years ago. It is called the "Younger" because there were others that preceeded it.At wikipedia (Dryas - Wikipedia) you will see that this is named for a plant that occurs then: You can also google {"little ice age"} and you will see reference to a very cold period from the 14th to the mid-19th centuries that was also documented in the historical texts ... and it affected what farmers could grow, so it shows up in harvest reports as well.We also know that the production of ¹⁴C is affected by the climate, thus we can predict that there would be a specific variation of ¹⁴C age data with climate and would expect a specific sided variation in the data during the above periods. This was observed, it is one of many such correlations. Ignorance (no slight intended, just the meaning of the word) is not a crime ... unless it is used to form (unfounded) opinions. It is also curable: you can find out.Enjoy.

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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I've fixed the link (replaced it with the HowStuffWorks one) in the main article, thanks for letting me know. The main problem here is that when you know how ¹⁴C works and what the problems are (it is dependant on the original source using atmospheric carbon), it is easy to purposely find samples that seem to violate the dating method:Coal (or diamonds) near radioactive material (uranium is common) that converts nitrogen to ¹⁴C in the sample in the same way that it is converted in the atmosphere, with the "result" that the sample "tests" waaay too young. Proper sample technique tests for radioactive contamination to rule out this factor.Shellfish using archaic calcium carbonate are actually using very old carbon to make shells for currently living animals - what is known as the "resevoir effect" - and thus "test" waaay to old. Proper sample technique tests for this effect to rule out this factor.These are two of the more common and well known things that can affect the results. Creatortionistas also know about these factors, and they are not shy about intenionally misusing them to create a false impression that there are problems with the methodology itself rather than with their intentional and bogus misuse.So far every example I have seen (where a creatortionista claims that the dating of an object is false) have been items like these where there is a simple, valid and honest reason for the results not testing the actual age of the object.Proper testing protocol usually involves testing items for age by a number of different methods, and if one is way different from the others then source(s) of that difference {is\are} looked for to find out why there is an error. In early reports on fossil finds you will often see where they state something like "preliminary dates" because not all the backup testing has been completed.Hope that helps.

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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Have not seen diamonds specifically, but I have seen a good one on coal:Carbon-14 in Coal Deposits You can contact the author (Kathleen Hunt) as her e-mail is linked at the beginning of the article.I don't see any problem with it being the same mechanism (after the diamond has been formed){abe}added paragraph above to show why they want to find ¹⁴C free fossil fuels - any radioactivity in the detector would produce a false signal.{/abe}This message has been edited by RAZD, 10*26*2005 07:26 AM

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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Baumgardner, Humphreys, Snelling ... the "usual suspects" ... not that familiar with Austin though. Presumably also an ICR "fellow"

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Thanks all for your inputs on the creatortionistas, but let's leave that for another topic and let this one be for those like {christian} who have questions and curiosity about the actual age dating mechanisms.I realize it is partly my fault. Thanks.

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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Fascinating. Would you like some Roentgens with those Carats? Thanks

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