Denver RATE Conference (Thousands...Not Billions)_Part 2
Continued from Part 1 (http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200709/0498.html)
"Thousands ... not Billions"
Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth (RATE) Conference
Colorado Community Church, Denver, Colorado
September 15, 2007 (8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.)
------
**Dr. John Baumgardner ? Coal & Diamonds Contain Evidence for Recent
Formation**
At 9:30 a.m., Dr. Gary Parker (the previous speaker-see part 1) introduced
us directly to the next speaker; Dr. John Baumgardner. We were told that
Baumgardner had a PhD. in Geophysics & Space Physics from UCLA, had worked
at Los Alamos National Laboratory until he retired, was world famous for
his supercomputer modeling work on Plate Tectonics (even featured in a US
World & News article), now works full time with the Institute for Creation
Research (ICR) where he has set up a supercomputer for use in Creationist
research, and would be speaking to us about his own Carbon-14 (C14) dating
research for the ICR Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth (RATE)
project.
The initial PowerPoint slide for his talk had the title, "Evidence for a
Young Earth: C-14 in Coal & Diamonds". In our conference
schedule/brochure we were given his "Main Points" and some "Technical
Definitions" that are reproduced here ...
_Main Points_
* Large amounts of Carbon-14 found in coal and diamonds support a young
earth and the Biblical account of Noah's Flood
_Technical Definitions_
* CARBON-14: a short-lived isotope used for dating organic materials like
fossils (Carbon-14 has a half-live of 5,730 years)
* HALF-LIFE: the amount of time it takes for half of the mass of an
isotope to decay radioactively
* UNIFORMITARIANISM: the belief that geological processes have always
been of the same kind and intensity; implies vast amounts of geologic time
Dr. John Baumgardner began with his testimony: At the age of 26 he was
converted during a Bible study of the first gospel of John. He had grown
up in a non-Christian home - his father was an agnostic college professor.
Before his conversion, Baumgardner was an evolutionist but by 6 months
afterwards he had decided that evolution was false. During a weekend
Creationist conference by Henry Morris & Duane Gish in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, Baumgardner was exposed to scientific evidence for the Genesis
Flood and became a Young Earth Creationist (YEC). Soon after that he
became a Campus Crusades lecturer for YEC.
Baumgardner was a pleasant and engaging speaker; especially as he shared
his testimony. However as his talk became more technical, his speech was
more dry and less dynamic (approaching monotonic) and filled with
hesitations and 'uhs'. Of the four RATE research speakers that day,
Baumgardner was the least dynamic and hardest to follow. Despite this,
his talk was very effective - in part, I believe, by the scheduling of his
lecture. As the first technical lecture of the day, people were eager to
hear the science and paid close attention. Had he been later in the day,
such as the first speaker after lunch, I believe his message would have
been less effective. As it was, during some of the more technical parts
of his talk you could see puzzled looks and furrowed brows on faces in the
audience. Then he would recast his point in simplified English and you
would see the faces change with relief and perceived understanding.
When Baumgardner became a YEC, he realized that the Genesis Flood had to
be a tectonic catastrophe and not just a lot of water. This led him to
pursue his PhD. at UCLA to study the relationship between Plate Tectonics
& the Flood. He was able to continue this research during the time that
he worked at Los Alamos. His recent research is on radiocarbon dating but
this study was added late to the RATE project and thus wasn't included to
any great detail in the first RATE technical volume (RATE I book).
However, enough work has now been done on C14 dating that he could share
the major conclusions with us: "The mere presence of C14 in fossils show
that they must only be a few thousands years old! We need more laborers
to communicate the success of the RATE C14 studies."
At this point, the talk became more technical. First he set the stage by
explaining some of the basics of Carbon-14 dating (NOTE - I am reproducing
here the numbers and explanations that Baumgardner gave. I did not
attempt to check, corroborate, or correct these statements except as noted
in [brackets]): 90% of the world's carbon is the stable isotope Carbon-12
(C12) which has 6 neutrons. [He did not mention that C12 also has 6
protons and that 6 protons + 6 neutrons = C12.] There is another stable
carbon isotope, C13, that has 7 neutrons. C14 has 8 neutrons (instead of
6), is unstable or radioactive with a half-life of 5,730 years., and
decays back to Nitrogen-14 (N14) by emitting a beta particle. The current
ratio of C14 to C12 in the atmosphere is 1:1.2 trillion (1 atom of C14 for
every 1.2 trillion atoms of C12). C14 is constantly being produced in the
atmosphere as high energy protons in cosmic rays hit an air molecule
(either nitrogen or oxygen) to produce neutrons. These neutrons interact
with N14 to produce C14 and a proton. This atmospherically-produced C14
is taken up by all living organisms (as carbon dioxide and in the food
they consume). At death, the organism stops ingesting C14, the C14/C12
ratio is set, and contained C14 begins to decay back to N14. Therefore if
we know the initial C14/C12 ratio, the half-life of C14, and measure the
remaining amount of C14, we can calculate the time that has passed since
the death of the organism.
Baumgardner said that there are 3 assumptions made for C14 dating.
(1) The original C14 content in the atmosphere is known;
(2) No exchange of carbon with surrounding material (he noted that this
was difficult to guarantee); and
(3) The C14 decay rate hasn't changed.
Next we received an explanation (with PowerPoint diagrams) of the
different types of instrumentation that are used to detect C14 in a
sample. I will not include those details here. Suffice it to say that
there is an older methodology that can measure C14 up to about 9 or 10
half-lives (~55,000 - 60,000 years or 55-60 ka) and a newer methodology
called Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS) that is more sensitive and can
go to about 17 half-lives or 100 ka.
Baumgardner then emphasized some points so that we could appreciate the
impact of the RATE conclusions. I will quote statements here from my
notes.
"C14 has a half life of 5,730 years. One million years is about 175
half-lives. No C14 on Earth could be 1 million years old. Finding C14 in
anything older than 1 million years, unless it has been contaminated, is
beyond unthinkable. Yet C14 is present in all fossil organic material.
This was well documented in standard radiocarbon literature before RATE."
We were then shown a couple of unreadable PowerPoint slides with a table
(in a very small font) listing 90 different old C14-tested samples with
dates (or measurements?) and reference citations to the standard
literature to prove his last point. Baumgardner assured us that we didn't
need to actually read these slides since the same table was reproduced in
his chapter within the RATE II technical volume. [Only $80 at the ICR
bookstore in the lobby! And since every volume was shrink-wrapped, I
couldn't see the table in his chapter without buying the book.]
"Even though these samples are old (over 1 M.Y.?), the average C14 age
is 50,000 years. 50,000 years is 16 times the AMS lower detection limit
[and therefore, by implication, should be accurate]. The AMS detection
limit is 1/100,000."
This part was very confusing - mainly because he was throwing numbers at
us fast and not being careful with units. Therefore alarm bells were
going off in my mind saying that things weren't adding up but I couldn't
do the math in my head quick enough to figure it out at the time so I just
scribbled my notes. [As I understand it, the AMS doesn't measure and
report C14 years; I believe AMS reports C14/C ratios which are then
plugged into an equation to get dates.]
Baumgardner continued: There was a "frantic quest in the laboratories to
find sources of C14 contamination." This led to all those papers in the
radiocarbon literature. After eliminating or accounting for all known
sources of C14 contamination, the labs attributed the remainder of C14 to
'in-situ' contamination; C14 that was actually in the sample. Now the
laboratories subtract a "standard background from the actual C14
measurement that is equal to about 40,000 years." The laboratories do
this to "avoid the embarrassing reality that essentially all fossil carbon
contains C14.
A PowerPoint slide was put up with a quote from Bird, M.I. et al., 1999,
Radiocarbon dating of "old" charcoal using a wet oxidation,
stepped-combustion procedure: Radiocarbon v. 41, p.127-140. I could not
write the quote fast enough so I just wrote down the reference. I
reproduce the quote here directly from the source. [This quote may be
longer or shorter than that given on the slide.]
"Detecting sample contamination and verifying the reliability
of the ages produced also become more difficult as the age
of the sample increases. In practice this means that many
laboratories will only quote C14 ages to about 40 ka BP
(thousands of C14 years Before Present), with ages greater
than this generally considered to be 'infinite', or
indistinguishable from procedural blanks. This so-called
'radiocarbon barrier' and the difficulty of ensuring that ages
are reliable at <1% modern carbon levels has limited
research in many disciplines."
Baumgardner's response to this quote was that the "radiocarbon barrier is
a convenient fiction."
Baumgardner related how they had obtained 10 coal samples from the Penn
State University Energy Institute Coal Sample Archive that ranged in age
from Paleozoic to Mesozoic to Cenozoic. These samples were sent to a
professional radiocarbon dating laboratory. Each sample was analyzed 4
times. We were shown a PowerPoint table with the results: All samples
were between 44.5-57.x ka and the average age was 49,600 years.
"Our results confirmed what is already in the literature. There were no
significant differences between all ages of coal; therefore all plants in
these coal beds grew and died at the same time. The only explanation is
Noah's Flood."
"There are no modern analogs to coal forming today. Some of the coals
have articulated dinosaurs. Some dinosaurs have been found with soft
tissue in their bones. All of these things point to a recent cataclysm
'thousands ... not billions' of years ago."
This pronouncement brought scattered applause from the audience but there
was also some muttering about 50,000 years. Baumgardner then told us that
the pre-flood world had a lot more available carbon in the biomass than in
today's world - after all just look at all of the carbon contained in
coal, petroleum, and carbonates that were all deposited at the same time
in the geologic record by Noah's Flood. This excess carbon may have
diluted the C14 in the pre-flood world such that the initial C14/C12 ratio
would be a lot smaller; perhaps by a factor of 100 - 500 times. If we
plug a conservative estimate of a 100-fold dilution factor for pre-flood
initial C14/C12 ratios into the dating formula, then these 50,000-year C14
dates are really equal to about 5,000 years. Thus C14 gives us an
approximate date for Noah's flood at 5,000 years ago. At this point,
there was enthusiastic applause accompanied by scattered shouts of
"Hallelujah!" from the audience.
But this wasn't the end of his talk. In additional to coal, "C14 has been
found in Precambrian graphite, marble, and calcite." Therefore with their
coal samples, RATE included a diamond in their initial submission for C14
dating. Although the lab had trouble analyzing the diamond, eventually
they returned a date that was just about the same as the coal samples.
"Diamonds are thought to be 1 to 3 billion years old. And because of
high bond strength, diamond is almost impossible to contaminate."
So Baumgardner obtained 6 African diamonds from deep mines and submitted
them for C14 dating. These diamonds gave the "same results that are
already in the literature." So why is there C14 in 1 to 3
billion-year-old diamonds? (1) Perhaps it is "primordial C14" from the
moment of creation; or (2) Perhaps 'Accelerated Nuclear Decay' during the
Flood generated high levels of neutrons that created C14 in the diamonds.
Today's levels of neutrons in the mines are 10,000 to 100,000 times to low
to create this much C14.
Finally, the conclusions slide for the talk told us ...
* Uniformitarianism is highly vulnerable to challenge
* Coal proves that there was a 5,000-year-old flood
* Diamonds prove 'Accelerated Nuclear Decay' during the Flood
* Therefore the Bible is true after all!
These conclusions were enthusiastically received by the audience.
At 10:30, we were released for a sorely-needed break. The crowds at the
ICR literature tables were only exceeded by the lines into the bathrooms.
Free doughnuts and bottled water were available for a snack.
------
Coming soon: RATE Part 3 - Dr. Russell Humphreys, Helium Diffusion Dates
Rocks at 6,000 Years.
Steve
(Disclaimer: Opinions expressed herein are my own and are not to be
attributed to my employer ... or anyone else.)
_____________
Steven M. Smith, Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey
Box 25046, M.S. 973, DFC, Denver, CO 80225
Office: (303)236-1192, Fax: (303)236-3200
Email: smsmith@usgs.gov
-USGS Nat'l Geochem. Database NURE HSSR Web Site-
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/ofr-97-0492/
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Received on Mon Sep 24 19:01:42 2007
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