Evidence for a Recent
Creation
David A. Plaisted
Evidence for accelerated decay
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Helium retention in zircons
Recent Carbon 14 dates
Radiation and accelerated decay
Evidence of accelerated mutation rate
Evidence of a nearby supernova
Lack of objects in the Kuiper belt
Correlation between surface heat flow
and the radioactivity of surface rocks
Many lines of evidence are
beginning to fit together into a
consistent picture.
How much evidence is
necessary before a paradigm
shift occurs?
Creationists now feel that
billions of years worth of
radioactive decay has occurred
on earth, giving old isotopic
dates, but this decay took place
in only a few thousand years.
Alpha Decay
ZIRCONS
HELIUM DIFFUSION RATES SUPPORT
ACCELERATED NUCLEAR DECAY
D. RUSSELL HUMPHREYS, STEVEN A.
AUSTIN, JOHN R. BAUMGARDNER,
ANDREW A. SNELLING
International Conference on
Creationism
Geneva College, Beaver Falls, PA
August 4-9, 2003
Two decades ago, Robert Gentry and
his colleagues at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory reported surprisingly high
amounts of nuclear-decay-generated
helium in tiny radioactive zircons from
Precambrian rock. Up to 58% of the
helium (that radioactivity would have
generated during the alleged 1.5 billion
year age of the granodiorite) was still in
the zircons. Yet the zircons were so
small that they should not have
retained the helium for even a tiny
fraction of that time.
The high helium retention levels
suggested to us and many other
creationists that the helium simply had
not had enough time to diffuse out of
the zircons, and that recent
accelerated nuclear decay had
produced over a billion years worth of
helium within only the last few
thousand years, during Creation and/or
the Flood. Such acceleration would
reduce the radioisotopic time scale
from megayears down to months.
However, until a few years ago nobody
had done the experimental and
theoretical studies necessary to
confirm this conclusion quantitatively.
In 2000 the RATE project [14] began
experiments to measure the diffusion
rates of helium in zircon and biotite.
We show that these data limit the age
of these rocks to between 4,000 and
14,000 years. These results support
our hypothesis of accelerated nuclear
decay and represent strong scientific
evidence for the young world of
Scripture.
Carbon 14 is produced in the
atmosphere by cosmic rays and
then slowly decays. The older an
organic sample is, the less carbon
14 it will contain because it will not
be absorbing new carbon 14 after
it dies.
MEASURABLE 14C IN FOSSILIZED
ORGANIC MATERIALS: CONFIRMING THE
YOUNG EARTH CREATION-FLOOD
MODEL
JOHN R. BAUMGARDNER,D. RUSSELL
HUMPHREYS, ANDREW A. SNELLING,
STEVEN A. AUSTIN
International Conference on
Creationism
Geneva College, Beaver Falls, PA
August 4-9, 2003
ABSTRACT
Given the short 14C half-life of 5730
years, organic materials purportedly
older than 250,000 years should
contain absolutely no detectable 14C.
An astonishing discovery made over
the past twenty years is that, almost
without exception, when tested by
highly sensitive accelerator mass
spectrometer (AMS) methods, organic
samples from every portion of the fossil
record show detectable amounts of
14C!
14C/C ratios from all but the youngest
samples appear to be clustered in the
range 0.1-0.5 pmc (percent modern
carbon), regardless of geological ‘age.’
A straightforward conclusion that can
be drawn from these observations is
that all but the very youngest fossilized
organic material was buried
contemporaneously much less than
250,000 years ago. This is consistent
with the Biblical account of a global
Flood that destroyed most of the airbreathing life on the planet in a single
brief cataclysm only a few thousand
years ago.
Giem [18] reviewed the literature and
tabulated about seventy reported AMS
measurements of 14C in organic materials
from the geologic record that, according to
the conventional geologic time-scale, should
be 14C ‘dead.’ The surprising result is that
organic samples from every portion of the
fossil record show detectable amounts of
14C. For the measurements considered most
reliable, the 14C/C ratios appear to fall in the
range 0.1-0.5 percent of the modern 14C/C
ratio (percent modern carbon, or pmc).
0.1 percent modern carbon
corresponds to a computed age of
57,000 years!
The conventional uniformitarian age for these
samples is well beyond 100,000 years (in
most cases it is tens to hundreds of millions
of years).
The samples include coal, anthracite, and
natural gas, as well as wood, shells,
foraminifera, and other fossils. Even some
Precambrian graphite samples have carbon
14 ages of about 60,000 years!
Some of the researchers tried to explain this
carbon 14 as contamination, but none of their
attempts to clean it were successful.
AMS analyses reveal carbon from
fossil remains of living organisms,
regardless of their position in the
geological record, consistently contain
14C levels far in excess of the AMS
machine threshold, even when
extreme pre-treatment methods are
applied. Experiments in which the
sample size is varied argue
compellingly that the 14C is intrinsic to
the fossil material and not a result of
handling or pre-treatment. These
conclusions continue to be confirmed
in the very latest peer-reviewed
papers.
Moreover, even non-organic carbon
samples appear consistently to yield
14C levels well above machine
threshold. Graphite samples formed
under metamorphic and reducing
conditions in Precambrian limestone
environments commonly display 14C
values on the order of 0.05 pmc. A
good question is what possibly could
be the source of the 14C in this
material? We conclude that the
possibility this 14C is primordial is a
reasonable one.
Organic matter consistently has a
higher 14C ratio than Precambrian
inorganic matter
• Not noise
• Not contamination
Dr Baumgardner sent a diamond for C14 dating. It was the first time this had
been attempted, and the answer came
back positive—i.e. the diamond,
formed deep inside the earth in a
‘Precambrian’ layer, nevertheless
contained radioactive carbon, even
though it ‘shouldn’t have’. This is
exceptionally striking evidence,
because a diamond has remarkably
powerful lattice bonds, so there is no
way that subsequent biological
contamination can be expected to find
its way into the interior.
The diamond’s carbon-dated ‘age’
of <58,000 years is thus an upper
limit for the age of the whole
earth. And this age is brought
down still further now that the
helium diffusion results have so
strongly affirmed dramatic past
acceleration of radioactive decay.
The fact that isotopic dates are
generally too old by hundreds of
millions of years, but Carbon 14
dates are only too old by
thousands of years, is also
evidence for accelerated decay
because Carbon 14 decays much
faster.
An ounce of silver + a pound of
gold: Not much difference
An ounce of silver + a pound of
bricks: Big difference
$5.00 doesn’t mean much to a
millionaire
$5.00 means a lot to a beggar!
100 + 1/10: not much increase
.001 + 1/10: big increase
Small half life: Decay is frequent
Large half life: Decay is rare
Extra decay makes little difference if
decay is frequent
Extra decay makes large difference
if decay is rare
Conclusion:
Isotopic ages of elements with large
half lives should be more affected
by an increase in decay rates
Half Lives for Radioactive Elements
Radioactive
Parent
Stable
Daughter
Half life
Potassium 40
Argon 40
1.25 billion
yrs
Rubidium 87
Strontium
87
48.8 billion
yrs
Thorium 232
Lead 208
14 billion
years
Lead 207
704 million
years
Uranium 238
Lead 206
4.47 billion
years
Carbon 14
Nitrogen 14
5730 years
Uranium 235
Alpha decay and beta decay use
different processes
Therefore they may not be
affected the same by an increase
in the decay rate
So discordances between alpha
and beta decay ages are an
evidence of disturbed decay
Expected evidence of increase
in decay rates:
Carbon 14 ages much younger
than other isotopic ages like KAr, U-Pb, et cetera
Alpha and beta ages should
differ
Long half live ages more
affected than short half life
ages
RADIOISOTOPES IN THE
DIABASE SILL (UPPER
PRECAMBRIAN) AT BASS
RAPIDS, GRAND
CANYON, ARIZONA: AN
APPLICATION AND TEST OF
THE ISOCHRON DATING
METHOD
STEVEN A. AUSTIN, Ph.D.
ANDREW A. SNELLING, Ph.D.
WILLIAM A. HOESCH
Evidence for
accelerated decay
rates obtained from
isotopic dates
themselves
Even airtight isotopic dates
disagree – the only
explanation is a change in
decay rates!
ABSTRACT: The five-point Rb-Sr
whole-rock isochron age of 1.07 Ga for
the diabase sill at Bass Rapids, Grand
Canyon, has been regarded for 20
years as an excellent example of the
application of conventional
radioisotopic dating. However, our
new K-Ar, Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd and Pb-Pb
radioisotope data from eleven wholerock samples (eight diabase, three
granophyre) and six mineral phases
separated from one of the whole-rock
diabase samples yield discordant
whole-rock and mineral isochron
“ages.”
These isochron “ages” range from
841.5±164 Ma (whole-rock K-Ar) to
1375±170 Ma (mineral Sm-Nd). Each
method appears to yield concordant
“ages” internally between whole rocks
and minerals. It is therefore argued
that only changing radioisotope decay
rates in the past could account for
these discordant isochron “ages” for
the same geologic event. Furthermore,
these data are consistent with alpha
decay having been accelerated more
than beta decay, and with the longer
the present half-life the greater being
the acceleration factor.
This is not an isolated
phenomenon but is
characteristic of isotopic
dates:
Austin has already documented that, when
the mineral isochron method is applied as a
test of the assumptions of radioisotopic
dating, discordances inevitably result.
According to Austin, four categories of
discordance are found in suites of rocks with
a common origin — (1) two or more
discordant whole rock isochron ages, (2) a
whole-rock isochron age older than the
associated mineral isochron ages, (3) two or
more discordant mineral isochrons from the
same rock, and (4) a whole-rock isochron age
younger than the associated mineral isochron
ages. Our radioisotope data from the Bass
Rapids diabase sill exhibit all four categories
of isochron discordance. Thus the
assumptions of radioisotopic dating must be
questioned.
Airtight dates disagree:
An evidence of a change in the
decay rates
Mutation rates
“Mitochondrial DNA appears to mutate much faster than
expected, prompting new DNA forensics procedures and
raising troubling questions about the dating of evolutionary
events.”
“...Regardless of the cause, evolutionists are most concerned
about the effect of a faster mutation rate. For example,
researchers have calculated that "mitochondrial Eve"--the
woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living
people--lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using
the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old…”
Gibbons, Ann, “Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock”, Science, Vol 279, No. 5347, Jan 1998, pp. 28 - 29.
Mutation rates
In fact, a similar argument gives young ages for wolves,
coyotes, dogs, ducks, birds, E. Coli, and Drosophila (fruit
flies). Probably many organisms can be shown to have
originated within the past few thousand years using genetic
diversity arguments.
Ages computed from nuclear DNA diversity are larger than
ages computed from mtDNA diversity. This is also evidence
for an accelerated mutation rate in the past because nuclear
DNA mutates much slower and would be more affected. But
what caused the increase?
There is evidence that small doses of radiation can lead to
unexpectedly high mutation rates in humans (Science 8
February 2002 vol. 295 page 946): ... researchers led by
geneticist Yuri Dubrova of the University of Leicester, United
Kingdom, describe a compelling connection between
radioactive fallout and elevated mutation rates in families
living downwind of the Semipalatinsk nuclear facility ...
The findings bolster a controversial 1996 report by Dubrova
and a different group of colleagues that linked germ line
mutations to fallout from the 1986 Chornobyl explosion. That
study, published in Nature, described double the usual
mutation rate in the children of men living in a region of
Belarus heavily contaminated with cesium 137.
In each subject they examined eight minisatellite DNA
regions that are prone to mutations. ... Compared to control
families in a nonirradiated part of Kazakhstan, individuals
exposed to fallout had a rougly 80% increase in mutation
rate, and their children showed an average rise of 50%.
So it all fits together: increased decay leads
to higher levels of radiation and also
increases mutation rates in humans! And
there is some evidence that the rate of decay
may vary:
Slusher (1981, p. 26) reports: Anderson
and Spangler maintain that their several
observations of statistically significant
deviations from the (random) expectation
strongly suggests that an unreliability
factor must be incorporated into agedating calculations. Such irregularities
were observed for carbon 14, cobalt 60,
and cesium 137. The source for this
information is Anderson, J.L. and
Spangler, G.W., "Radiometric Dating: Is
the `Decay Constant' Constant?", Pensee,
p. 31.
Even Dalrymple (1984, p. 88) recognizes such
irregularities: Under certain environmental
conditions, the decay characteristics of 14C,
60Co, and 137Ce, all of which decay by beta
emission, do deviate slightly from the ideal
random distribution predicted by current
theory ... , but changes in the decay constants
have not been detected. Dalrymple cites the
references Anderson, J. L., 1972, Non-Poisson
distributions observed during counting of
certain carbon-14-labeled organic (sub)
monolayers, Phys. Chem. J. 76: 3603-3612 and
Anderson, J.L.and G.W. Spangler, 1973, Serial
statistics: Is radioactive decay random? Phys.
Chem. J. 77: 3114 - 3121.
What could have sped up decay rates?
The following comment by Keith Wanser,
a creationist physicist, quoted in Creation
Ex Nihilo 21(4) p. 40 is significant:
Actually, it turns out that when you get the
nucleus "excited", decay is going to be
much quicker, making things look vastly
"older". People have been talking recently
about magnetic stars giving off big bursts
of gamma rays; there are all sorts of ways
that radiometric "clocks" could have been
reset catastrophically, during the Flood,
for example.
“Furtive Glances Trigger Radioactive
Decay," Science 2 June 2000 vol 288
page 1564
This article shows how interactions with
elementary particles can cause decay
rates to increase. One such particle is
the neutrino, and supernovas produce
many neutrinos.
A recent result (Science 26 April 2002
vol. 296 page 633) implies that
neutrinos interact with matter much
more readily than previously thought:
“The results also show that another
property of neutrinos, related to how
they interact with matter, known as the
mixing angle, must be large, rather than
small, contrary to what physicists
believed until quite recently.”
Where did all the radiation come from to
speed up decay rates?
The Crab Nebula is the
remnant of a supernova
explosion that was seen on
Earth in 1054 AD. It is 6000
light years from Earth. At
the center of the bright
nebula is a rapidly spinning
neutron star, or pulsar that
emits pulses of radiation 30
times a second.
The Crab Nebula
SN 1987A. Elle apparut le 23 février 1987
Gamma rays may have devastated
life on Earth 24 September 03 New
Scientist A devastating burst of gamma
rays may have caused one of Earth's
worst mass extinctions, 443 million
years ago. A team of astrophysicists
and palaeontologists says the pattern of
trilobite extinctions at that time
resembles the expected effects of a
nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB).
GRBs are the most powerful explosions
known. As giant stars collapse into
black holes at the end of their lives,
they fire incredibly intense pulses of
gamma rays from their poles that can
be detected even from across the
universe for 10 seconds or so.
Now Melott believes he has
palaeontological evidence that this
actually happened at the end of the
Ordovician period 443 million years
ago, causing one of the five largest
extinctions of the past 500 million years.
The researchers found that species of
trilobite that spent some of their lives in
the plankton layer near the ocean
surface were much harder hit than
deep-water dwellers, which tended to
stay put within quite restricted areas.
Melott says this unusual pattern could
be explained by a GRB, which would
probably devastate creatures living on
land and near the ocean surface, but
leave deep-sea creatures relatively
unharmed.
Supernova "smoking gun" linked to
mass extinctions 09 January 02 New
Scientist
They found atoms of a very rare isotope
of iron, 60Fe, in cores taken from the
ocean floor. 60Fe is rare in the solar
system because it has a half-life of 1.5
million years. The German group
suggested that the iron arrived on Earth
as fallout from a nearby supernova
about two million years ago.
This is about the time that fossil records
indicate that many marine molluscs
went extinct. Donald Clayton, an
astronomer at Clemson University, says
the story appears consistent: "The
amount of 60Fe found in deposits is
about what you might expect from a
supernova going off about 100 lightyears away." Clayton says 60Fe would
be blasted towards Earth when high
energy neutrons from the supernova
core smack into iron atoms in its outer
shell.
Supernova poised to go off near
Earth 10:30 23 May 02 New
Scientist. A student at Harvard
University has stumbled across the
terrifying spectacle of a star in our
galactic backyard that is on the brink of
exploding in a supernova. It is so close
that if it were to blow up before moving
away from us, it could wipe out life on
Earth.
We are only 150 light years away from
HR 8210 at present - well short of the
160 to 200 light years thought to be the
minimum safe distance from a
supernova. If it did let fly, the highenergy electromagnetic radiation and
cosmic rays it released would destroy
Earth's ozone layer within minutes,
giving life little chance of survival. "The
fact that there's such a system so close
to us suggests maybe these objects are
not so rare," says Latham.
But which supernova might have
been responsible for the
increase in decay rates?
The Gum Nebula is a huge
constellation in the Southern
hemisphere, about 1000 light years
away, and extending over at least 40
degrees of the sky. The Gum Nebula
is thought to be the remnant of one
or more ancient supernovae. One
pulsar in this region, perhaps not
associated with the Gum Nebula, is
the Vela Pulsar, which is about 800
light years away and estimated to be
about 11,000 years old.
However, if the dating of pulsars is
wrong, as has recently been
suggested, then the Vela Pulsar
could be much younger, and may
have arisen only 4,500 years ago, or
about the time of the Flood. The Vela
supernova remnant is now about 230
light years across and covers over
100 times the sky area of the full
moon.
Vela Supernova Remnant in X-ray
Vela Pulsar: Neutron Star-Ring-Jet
Another evidence of a recent
creation: comets
Comets crumble too quickly
Comet
Losses
Sun
Kuiper Belt
Kuiper belt – supposed source of
short period comets – was recently
found to have only 4 percent of the
necessary objects!
(Science 5 Sept. 2003 vol. 301 page
1304 “Comet 'Factory' Found to Have
Too Little Inventory”)
Comets must have been recently
produced, then, by some kind of a
catastrophe.
Asteroid Belt
Correlation between surface heat flow
and the radioactivity of surface rocks
(RATE book, page 80)
Robert Gentry claims to have found
"squashed" polonium haloes as well as
embryonic uranium radiohaloes in coal
deposits from many geological layers
claimed to be hundreds of millions of
years old. (See the Oct. 15, 1976 issue
of Science.)
Polonium halo
Squashed Polonium haloes from
coalified wood
Evidence for a recent creation
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Helium retention in zircons
Recent Carbon 14 dates
Radiation and accelerated decay
Evidence of accelerated mutation rate
Evidence of a nearby supernova
Lack of objects in the Kuiper belt
Correlation between surface heat flow
and the radioactivity of surface rocks
Many lines of evidence are
beginning to fit together
into a consistent picture.
How much evidence is
necessary before a
paradigm shift occurs?
Revelation 14
6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst
of heaven, having the everlasting gospel
to preach unto them that dwell on the
earth, and to every nation, and kindred,
and tongue, and people,
7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God,
and give glory to him; for the hour of his
judgment is come: and worship him that
made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and
the fountains of waters.