For whatever - your insult, and radioisotope dating

Whatever,I'll bet there are a lot of scientists going Doh! right now. Perhaps what is "obvious" to you is utterly incorrect?Perhaps you can name the compounds formed? Or perhaps the element is trapped in the lattice of the rock?Or perhaps this is utterly irrelevent to the topic under discussion?Perhaps you might do me the honour of replying to my previous posts(s)?Mark[This message has been edited by mark24, 01-07-2004]

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I think I figured out the problem with argon potassium dating,

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Actually, your post makes precisely clear what the problem is: You don't know even a lick of chemistry, do you?

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its obvious to me that argon compound are being generated,

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Argon is not a compound, it is an element. Being a noble gas, it is almost impossible for argon to bond to anything else. It's an inherent property of noble gasses; their outermost electron shell is completely filled. It is possible, but *extremely difficult*, to create noble gas compounds (it wasn't even achieved until the 1960s). The resulting end products that they managed to create were *incredibly* unstable. The compounds that I'm aware of are xenon-based; it may be possible with argon as well, but it will be even more unstable.For all practical purposes, noble gasses do not bond.

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so what is the nature of the basalt that would give a bogus inflated argon date making the rocks appear millions of year old

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You've got it all wrong: first off, your line of "reasoning" only applies to K/Ar dating (not Ar/Ar which is isochron and not subject to most cases of leaking).

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this appears to be all your questioning, given you put so much faith in the inert noble gas argon and the circular game

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It's Not Circular When Multiple Independent Methods Return The Same Result, something that you keep refusing to address!!!

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the sediments can be dated by a nucleur clock, here's the link's proving argon can be captured and by the very basalts your dating, etc...

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The article discussed in the link refers to molecules of CUO *trapped inside solid noble gas matrices* that interact weakly with the matrix. I.e., they're not even stable enough to hold themselves together - and this is *at temperatures near absolute zero*. How exactly are you proposing that we get such frigid solid noble gas matrices in the earth?

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Did a google search, and your answer lies in that basalt contain thorium an uranium energy enriched compound, its been proven that argon gas can be captured by uranium so what I believe is happening, is given thorium is part of the basalt that you place such faith in dating, its responsible for your inflated ages, and argon capture, etc...

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You believe that individual CUO molecules are trapped inside noble gas matrices in basalt? Please tell me that's not the case Just to reiterate the point:In The Experiments That You're Referencing, Solid Argon Is Trapping CUO, Not The Other Way Around, And The Temperatures Are Near Absolute Zero.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

I know! I know! Walt says that all that 900-degree steam had an equal and opposite force on the temperature of the Argon (as proved by Isaac Newton, A Creationist!!!) and froze it and the cupric oxide meteors hit at about that time and ....I just can't do it... sorry.

You're full of it.You're just picking random ideas that include the word "argon" and hoping that they are a problem for dating. It's obvious that you don't have the vaguest idea of how dating works and what is or is not a problem. You really need to read Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective before you post anything more on this subject. Even after reading and understanding that you probably won't know enough to make a coherent criticism of radiometric dating.Argon compounds are not being generated in the rocks.All radioisotope dating methods are used to date rocks that have small amounts of radioiactive impurities incorporated in them. There is no such thing as "pure basalt".Thorium is an element, not a "uranium energy enriched compound".The situation to which you refer does not happen in nature. It requires carefully controlled laboratory situations and temperatures far below any ever experienced on Earth.In order to make rocks that are not milions of years old appear to be millions of years old, you have to add or remove different amounts but exactly the correct amounts of about twenty different elements and their isotopes from the solid rock. No known process can do that.Most radioisotope dating does not involve argon. Until you address uranium-thorium-lead dating (especially concordia-discordia dating) and isochron methods you haven't addressed anythingTry writing a response about dating without ever mentioning potassium or argon.[This message has been edited by JonF, 01-07-2004]

mark24, If argon is being captured by uranium, when water and carbon are present, then the dates subscribed to the sediment layers, are bogus, for argon to be captured in a lab, thought, they used solid argon, and super cold but that doesn't mean it proves argon is not being captured by uranium compounds, in the very basalts sediments your dating, etc...Snellings diamond was carbon, and found in crustal basalts, so how is this not this evidence that argon is being captured in less than perfect conditions, higher temps, in the very basalts your dating, etc...Its like the very basalt rocks your dating are crying out to you, we're responsible, we did it, etc...P.S. I have not studied your K-T boundary, for all I know God might of used your meterorite, to cause the crack that went around the earth 47,000 miles causing the fountains of the deep to erupt, and the mid-ocean ridges to form, etc...with settling caused the lighter iridium dust to settle above them dinosaur bones, etc...Search | The Ohio State UniversityThey were studying a molecule with the formula CUO, which is formed from the reaction of uranium atoms with carbon monoxide. The Ohio State and Virginia teams have been studying molecules like CUO in order to better understand how the radioactive metals react with small molecules, such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and water.Error | The Institute for Creation ResearchRather than focus on attempting to date only diamond micro-inclusions as others had done, Zashu et al. [98] carefully selected 10 Zaire diamonds and examined them for purity before undertaking K-Ar dating analyses of the diamonds themselves. However, at the outset they noted that there had been almost no direct radiometric dating of diamonds except for conventional K-Ar dating, and the results had been questionable due to the possible presence of excess 40Ar*. To avoid this problem, they used the K-Ar isochron dating method. Their experimental data showed good linear correlations, but these isochrons yielded an age of 6.0 0.3 Ga, which of course was unacceptable because these diamonds would be older than the Earth itself. Mistakes in the experimental procedure were easily discounted, so they were forced to conclude that excess 40Ar* was responsible, and that it needed to be in a fluid state to ensure the homogenization necessary to give such a constant 40Ar/K ratio. Alternately, they speculated that the diamonds might differ in K isotopic composition from common potassium, but this was discounted in a follow-up study [81] in which it was found that 40K was present in these diamonds in normal abundance. Because 40Ar/39Ar analyses yielded the same unacceptable "age", it was concluded that the excess 40Ar* was not generated in situ, but was an inherited or "trapped" component from the mantle reservoir when and where the diamonds formed.

Yes, that's so. If argon is being captured by uranium, then our potassium-argon dates for the sediment layers are too young; the sediment layers are much older than our measurments indicate. Locking up argon would have that effect. Of course, your proposed mechanism is just fantasy.Do you really want to argue that the sediment layers are older than scientists think they are? That's what your proposed "argon capture" leads to.And why do isochron dates and concordia-discordia dates agree with the potassium-argon dates? It's totally irrelevant. There is no known physical mechanism by which argon could be captured in uranium compounds in the rocks. There is no evidence of argon being captured in uranium compunds in the rocks. There is no reason to believe in your argon capture fantasy.You are the one making a positive claim; the burden of proof is on you. We have no requirement to prove argon is not captured by uranium compounds in the rocks; you have the burden of proving that argon is being captured by uranium in the rocks, and the articles you have posted do not support that claim. Come up with a measurement of argon being captured by uranium in a rock, or a theoretical analysis showing that it is both physically possible and likely, or give up on it.

JonF, If argon is a gas like radon, then it could well be rising up from the inner earth, making all the sediment rocks appear older, etc...is not this what Dr. Andrew Snelling was infering, in respect to the diamonds, that for the diamond to absorb excess argon, it had to be rising up from the earth, etc...P.S. Excess argon would make the sediments date older than they actually are, etc...[This message has been edited by whatever, 01-07-2004]

The argon would not have to be just rising up from the inner Earth, it would have to be entering into solid un-weathered un-fractured rock.Nonetheless, I have already noted that excess argon sometimes exists in samples, and that is one of the main reasons why the potassium-argon method isn't used much any more (except where it's confirmed by another method.I also noted (many times), and you have ignored, the fact that the far more widely used argon-argon method is not susceptible to the problem of excess argon. In fact, the lava from Mount Vesuvius that was correctly dated to just under 2,000 years using argon-argon had excess argon but the analysis came up with the correct date. From that paper, which has been referenced several times in this thread:

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Thus despite the presence of excess 40Ar, a sample less than 2000 years old can be dated with better than 5% precision {emphasis added - jrf}, validating 40Ar/39Ar dating as a reliable geochronometer into the late Holocene. These results also demonstrate that excess 40Ar can be identified in volcanic sanidine ... Our results also substantiate validity of the 40Ar/39Ar method in establishing the eruptive histories of populated active volcanic regions, where such information is vital to volcanic hazard assessment.

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And, of course, the many other methods that we have brought up and you have ignored (even though they are more widely used than potassium-argon) do not have the problem of excess argon because they don't involve argon.Snelling is working a shell-game con on you. He's not discussing the more robust methods that are far more widely used than potassium-argon, and he's hoping that you don't notice what he's hiding from you. Excess argon is a red herring. No. He wrote about diffusion a little, but he never talked about argon rising up or anyting near to that.He basically doesn't care how excess argon arises. He just hopes to confuse his audience into thinking that it's always a problem, and knowing where it comes form doesn't help him towards that goal.

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mark24, If argon is being captured by uranium, when water and carbon are present, then the dates subscribed to the sediment layers, are bogus,

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FALSE. If the right isotope of argon (and only the right isotope) is being captured by uranium, then K/Ar will be false, but Ar/Ar, U/Pb, and every other method (which ALL SHOW THE SAME NUMBERS) will still be correct. And, they ALL show the same numbers WHEN USED IN CIRCUMSTANCES WHERE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE USED except in exceptionally rare circumstances.

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for argon to be captured in a lab, thought, they used solid argon, and super cold but that doesn't mean it proves argon is not being captured by uranium compounds

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No. You're not getting it: The frozen argon is trapping individual molecules of CUO. Just ignoring that CUO isn't something you're going to find much of at all in nature, you're *never* going to find frozen argon on earth except in the lab. It doesn't even form at 1ATM until 83K.I'll repeat. The Argon is trapping Individual Molecules of something that isn't common in basalt under conditions that could not occur in basalt

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Snellings diamond was carbon, and found in crustal basalts, so how is this not this evidence that argon is being captured in less than perfect conditions,

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Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!1) It is not "Snelling's diamond". There were 10 cubic diamonds, and Snelling had both nothing to do with getting them, or even analyzing them. He wrote about a report in Nature.2) The diamonds were mined from kimberlite.3) Despite *intensive* research into diamonds and diamond production, to the best of my knowlege diamonds have *never* trapped gasses after being formed.Got it?

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P.S. I have not studied your K-T boundary

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Then study it, for God's sake!

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for all I know God might of used your meterorite, to cause the crack that went around the earth 47,000 miles causing the fountains of the deep to erupt, and the mid-ocean ridges to form, etc...with settling caused the lighter iridium dust to settle above them dinosaur bones, etc...

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That's not the issue! The K/T tektites, across the planet, all date to the same age. Using all of the following methods: Ar/Ar, K/Ar, Rb/Sr, and U/Pb (did I leave any out?)WHY?

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If argon is a gas like radon, then it could well be rising up from the inner earth, making all the sediment rocks appear older, etc...

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But Argon Is Hardly The Only Method Used To Do Radioisotope Dating, And The Other Methods Confirm It!Why do you keep refusing to address this?

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Wow, you know what? I think I just lost the last part of my patience for someone who refuses to answer questions posed to them.Goodbye. I'll be back should you ever decide that you're willing to actually take part in a debate instead of ignoring the other side.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Snelling seems to feel this excess argon would affect argon argon dating, too me, it would seem though the argon gas uptakes are being converted to argon compounds by the uranium (thorium), different from atmospheric contributions that have not yet converted, which probably why young rocks date closer when you burn off trapped argon gas, which could be burned off, etc...whatever, Snelling feels argon argon is suseptible, too, etc...P.S. Melvin Cook brings up problems with U/Pb in that the precurser to lead 208 is thorium 232 with an extremely long half life not being present making this dating method suspect, etc...I'm leaning it was probably calibrated to the argon argon or the argon potassium, explaining how it compares closely when dating, etc...How accurate are Carbon-14 and other radioactive dating methods? - ChristianAnswers.NetAs 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.Acts and Facts Magazine | The Institute for Creation ResearchHowever, are all other rocks in the earth's crust also susceptible to "contamination" by excess 40Ar* emanating from the mantle? If so, then the K-Ar and Ar-Ar "dating" of crustal rocks would be similarly questionable.Acts and Facts Magazine | The Institute for Creation ResearchFor more than three decades potassium-argon (K-Ar) and argon-argon (Ar-Ar) dating of rocks has been crucial in underpinning the billions of years for Earth history claimed by evolutionists. Critical to these dating methods is the assumption that there was no radiogenic argon (40Ar*) in the rocks (e.g., basalt) when they formed, which is usually stated as self-evident. Dalrymple argues strongly:The K-Ar method is the only decay scheme that can be used with little or no concern for the initial presence of the daughter isotope. This is because 40Ar is an inert gas that does not combine chemically with any other element and so escapes easily from rocks when they are heated. Thus, while a rock is molten, the 40Ar formed by the decay of 40K escapes from the liquid.1
However, this dogmatic statement is inconsistent with even Dalrymple's own work 25 years earlier on 26 historic, subaerial lava flows, 20% of which he found had non-zero concentrations of 40Ar* (or excess argon) in violation of this key assumption of the K-Ar dating method.2 The historically dated flows and their "ages" were:[This message has been edited by whatever, 01-07-2004]

I know I haven't been contributing to this thread, but believe me, it has to be almost as frustrating to read as to post.I am going to propose an experiment. This is post number 87 (unless someone beats me to the post). Let's see how far we can go discussing radioisotope dating without being able to mention ARGON or POTASSIUM

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Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

IrishRockHound, Rei, & Mark24, Just thought I check out how sediments settling, Walt explains through Liquefaction, how your fossils settled, its kind of interesting, explaining the sedimentary layerings, etc...the K-T boundaries probably were formed above the dinosaurs fossils through this mechanical principle of flood sediment fossils sorting, etc...
P.S. Don't really want to argue about flood sorting, to the flood sorting problems, just thought you might enjoy checking out Walts site, I might jump in on the flood sorting thread later, etc..Center for Scientific Creation – In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Floodtype on his google search engine: A Closer Look at Liquefaction

Whatever, Well, is it or not?Have metal-argon compounds been formed in the rock or not? Are you making assertions without knowing?The test to see whether argon has been captured is to compare dates inferred by methods using argon with methods that don't use argon. Results, whether using argon or not are highly concordant & we must conclude that argon capture is not occurring. So why do non-argon using methods results match so closely with argon based methods?You are in every way a typical creationist. You think that if you can introduce some alleged problem in isolation & without actually demonstrating that there actually is a problem you can throw the baby out with the bath water & ignore all radiometric methods. You think that addressing 1 point in 5 is acceptable debate & leaves you with the best hypothesis despite numerous unanswered contradictions to your position.I have gone to some length to explain the value of corroborational evidence here, & am waiting an explanation as to why different methods achieve the same results despite facing different potential problems, ie not using argon at all! Er, what crack that extends 47,000 miles that goes all around the earth?Iridium is found in relatively small quantities all throughout the gc. There is a massive spike dating 65 million years ago. Why did this settle above the dinosaur bones but below ALL CENOZOIC FOSSILS WHICH CAN BE JUST AS LARGE AS THE DINOSAURS!!!!!!! Good grief, you really haven't thought this through, have you?Here are the problems with the K-T boundary phenomenon point by point.FACT. Tektites date 65 myo using different methods. Shocked quartz is found at the K-T boundary & dates 65 myo. A large Iridium spike is found in rock dating 65 myo using different methods.FACT. The above are associated with impacts & not volcanism/tectonic activity.FACT. Shocked quartz, Iridium dust, & tektites all get in the same geological layer, & this is independent of radiometric dating.1/ Why do they appear in the same layers when hydrodynamic sorting should have them in layers exclusive of each other?2/ Why do they all date to 65 myo regardless of what method is used?3/ Why has the alleged global flood sorted rocks/particles by radiometric age rather than what would be expected hydrodynamically? Specificall, explain why the rock particles in the geological column aren't ordered by particle size (& hydrodynamic sorting); the GC should have breccia at the bottom, followed by gravels, sands, muds, & clays etc. Why aren't they?As regards using exinction events to infer a flood induced exinction.4/ Why does the Pleistocene extinction take place on different continents at different times?5/ How does the flood explain the other extinctions, the evidence of which you implicitly accept because it's the same as the Pleistocene evidence?6/ Why does the K-T boundary with all it's corroborating evidence occur 65 my earlier than the Pleistocene extinction? (Don't forget the other extinction events when formulating your answer!)7/ Even if one ignores radiometric dating, there is still a gap between the K-T boundary where the dinosaurs became extinct consisting of the Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, & Pliocene, & the megafaunal extinctions in the Pleistocene. Why are there stratigraphic gaps between extinction events if there was only one extinction by definition?And generally.......8/ Why do rocks in the Paleocene so consistently date 65-55 my, Eocene 55-33 my, Oligocene 33-24 my, Miocene 24-5 my, Pliocene 5-2 my, & the Pleistocene 2-0.01 my?9/ Why is the entire geologic column ordered by radiometric age, regardless of isotopes studied, rather than hydrodynamic sorting? Why is the only criteria for stratigraphic sorting radiometric age?Lastly, you asserted that: 10/ Explain the stratigraphic pattern of plant clades that bear trees.11/ Explain why nothosaurs, plesiosaurs & icthyosaurs are found exclusive of cetacea without exception.12/ Explain the gross ordering of the fossil record based on size & why it is exactly the opposite of what is expected by hydrodyamic sorting. A fossil record sorted hydrodynamically should have the large organisms at the bottom & the small at the top, but the fossil record for the first 5/6th sees little more than single celled life?13/ Explain why the earliest terrestrial vertebrates are distinctly "fishy".I have asked some of these questions multiple times now, you are not going to be allowed to make unnsupported assertions, & you are not going to be allowed to ignore relevant facts.Mark

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"Physical Reality of Matchette’s EVOLUTIONARY zero-atom-unit in a transcendental c/e illusion" - Brad McFall

Whatever,Liquefaction doesn't explain the fossil ordering at all. It fails to explain taxonomic sorting. ie why nothosaurs & plesiosaurs are found exclusive of cetacea without exception, for example. It also fails to explain the ordering by size not seen in the fossil record during the Mesozoic & Cenozoic (Triassic onwards).It is bunk.Mark