Earth science curriculum tailored to fit wavering fundamentalists

* blushes *You're very welcome.

You remember how I proved that you were completely wrong about that? So you should probably stop saying it. Once you did so out of ignorance, now it smacks of dishonesty.

No I don't remember.Doesn't matter though, there IS a ton of evidence for the rapid deposition of the entire column. I'll try to make a list of it.

Perhaps you should try to retain facts in your memory rather than fictions. ... which generations of practicing geologists couldn't find even though they were looking for it in the geological record, but which you have apparently discovered single-handed while barely glancing at a rock. Good. You do that.

They were looking at everything they could find, which was a lot. You don't need to see much of the geologic record to see there was no global flood and the Earth and life are old.Of course we've seen much more now, and all that we have found reinforces their conclusions.

You are welcome.

Oh well, the relevant scientists do study "particular layers". The relevant scientists even study small parts of "particular layers". The relevant scientists even study small parts of small areas on "particular "layers". What's your problem with that? What on earth is "the entire geological column"? Never seen one of those in my life. Is that another of your creationist fantasies?Edited by Pressie, : Spelling

Please, let's stop the off-topic jabber and nitpicking. Just post information, suggestions, corrections, additions, etc.

So when a shale layer is great in extent it implies an underlying wide continental shelf, such as the one off our east coast?The continental runoff suspended in the water that makes up shale deposits doesn't just disappear at the edge of the continental shelf, where the depth increases rapidly. What do deep water shale deposits look like?

Well, it's a fairly complex picture, but basically yes. Most of the deposits I'm familiar with are continental basins with some enclosure. The deep sea deposits usually exist primarily in the sea. That sounds kind of moronic, but what I mean is that they are often incorporated into the rock record as highly deformed and accreted to the continent, or they are subducted.An exception would be something like the Gulf of Mexico, where huge accumulations of mud will someday become an epic mudstone (shale) basin. Depending on the course of plate tectonics it could also be deformed.Another case where they are not subducted is in the Great Basin where they have been overthrust onto the slope and shelf rocks. In that location, they are called the Western Assemblage or the Upper Plate rocks, etc. But, they are different in having a lot more chemical sediments such as cherts, along with turbidites and oceanic volcanics associated with them.Here is what can happen to the deep sea sediments: This is a passive margin or trailing continental margin such as the Atlantic side of NA. Huge shale deposit could be built out onto the oceanic crust as in the Gulf.I hope this helps in some small way. The message board environment isn't the best for explaining such broad and variable topics.

My first impression is the same as 46&2's and Coyotes's that he is misusing the reservoir effect.My second impression is that, where ever it comes from, this argument can be refuted by comparing the Cariaco Basin varves (laid down under sea water) and the Lake Suigetsu varves (laid down under fresh water) and show that the slopes of the curves for 14C levels are the same. The Cariaco Basin varves are displaced by the reservoir effect, by (iirc) ~100 years apparent older age, and this displacement appears to be fairly constant.If what he said were true then:

1. the Cariaco Basin curve should be consistently flatter in slope compared to Lake Suigetsu (samples in contact with seawater for longer times should show more effect), and
2. the alignment of the Cariaco Basin varves with the German oak and pine would show a flatter average slope for the Cariaco Basin data, as the pine samples were terrestrial and not under sea water
3. the curves would also diverge due to the fact that the decay curve is exponential, his saline effect is presumably similar to the dissolution of salt in water and would be based on surface contact.

This difference in decay is just not seen, as the wiggle-match for these three sets of data shows:

quote:

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Hughen, K.A., Southon, J.R., Lehman, S.J., Overpeck, J.T.. Synchronous radiocarbon and climate shifts during the last deglaciation, Science vol 290, 2000, p 1951-1954.

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Figure 2 Radiocarbon calibration data set from Cariaco Basin core PL07-58PC compared with ... varved lake sediments. Thin black line and solid circles, Cariaco Basin data; thin gray line, German pine data (1); ... and open circles, varves from Lake Suigetsu, Japan (18). Climatic period abbreviations are as follows: Preboreal, PB; Younger Dryas, YD; Blling/Allerd, B/A; and Glacial, GL. Gray bars indicate timing of the Glacial-Blling transition and the beginning and end of the Younger Dryas based on Cariaco Basin gray scale. 14C and U/Th uncertainties are shown at 1σ.

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The Cariaco-pine overlap is 1370 years.The consilience of these three sets of data showing the same pattern of variation in 14C levels, with hundreds of points of agreement, is rather hard to explain by purported endemic errors.Finally, his effect would depend on the length of time an artifact was in salt water, rather than the time that the salt water had been away from the ocean surface, and you would not see the apparent 1,300 age of freshly killed seal at McMurdo Sound , so this creationist argument refutes his creationist argument ... (you can't have it both ways ...) they can't both be true (but they can both be false).One wonders what effect he thinks salt water has on carbon molecules and how it can affect different isotopes differentially.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : ..

Well that looks like one source for the claim.

quote:

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Radio Carbon Dating

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Problems with C14 Dating

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For radiocarbon dating to be reliable scientists need to make a number of vital assumptions. Firstly, Dr Libby assumed that C14 decays at a constant rate. However, experimental evidence indicates that C14 decay is slowing down and that millennia ago it decayed much faster than is observed today.

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Secondly, the theory behind C14 dating demands that there is the same rate of cosmic production of radioactive isotopes throughout time. The industrial revolution has belched hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon gases into the atmosphere increasing the C12 ratio and atomic weapons testing have increased neutron levels.

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Thirdly, the environment in which the artefact lies heavily impacts on the rate of decay. For example, C14 leaches at an accelerated rate from organic material saturated in water, especially saline water.

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Fourthly, for C14 to test accurately the artefact must have been protected from contamination. Organic matter, being porous, can easily be contaminated by organic carbon in groundwater. This increases the C12 content and interferes with the carbon ratio.

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New or Old?

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Some examples of abnormal C14 results include testing of recently harvested, live mollusc shells from the Hawaiian coast that showed that they had died 2000 years ago and snail shells just killed in Nevada, USA, dated in at 27,000 years old. A freshly killed seal at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, yielded a death age of 1300 years ago.

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We already know the McMurdo Pratt.Note that "Organic matter, being porous, can easily be contaminated by organic carbon in groundwater. This increases the C12 content and interferes with the carbon ratio" has it backwards -- it would increase the C14 content more than the C12 content because it is younger.Creationists making stuff up again.Enjoy

Hi RAZD.
The comments about dating problems I saw at the site were brief and reasonable - I did not see the ones you and Coyote pointed out.
The article I mentioned in message 836 was looking at the effect of calcite on RC dating of GROUNDWATER.
It found a 10% effect.
This is of course no comfort to YEC because it is not dating once-living things, and is too small to materially affect dates. As you show, any actual effect of saline is minimal at best.

I was similarly confused by Coyote's assertion of the creationist tilt of that site, as I undoubtedly saw the same page/s you did, which were reasonable, if amateurish. So I went back to the site, and saw the page he was talking about, and it is very clearly typical creationist propaganda.Here's the page:Radio Carbon Dating - Archaeology ExpertAlso, the Radiocarbon article you posted is behind a paywall, since it is fairly new-- 2013. I'd eventually like to read the whole article. But being so new, it certainly wasn't the source of the claim, since the video is a couple years older. Edited by 46&2, : No reason given.Edited by 46&2, : No reason given.

The video was recorded 2005.JB