I've been following the discussion (maybe that is too strong of a word :-)
on radiometric dating and would like to throw out yet another challenge to
our YEC friends. I have recently been working on a paper about the
Hawaiian Islands and there is a long history of radiometric dating for
these islands. I There are some additional conditions that make the dating
of the Hawaiian Islands very interesting compared to the typical questions
surrounding Mt. St. Helens and the Grand Canyon. The Hawaiian Islands are
a linear chain of Islands that is youngest at the southeastn most point
(i.e. where the active volcanoes are) and get progressively older as one
travels toward the northwest. Many rounds of radiometric dating have been
done and a very consistent relationship has been found between the distance
of a volcano from the active island and its age. What is truly amazing
though is that this relationship was established 30 years ago and from that
data an estimate of how fast the Pacific plate was moving could be made
with a gradeschool knowledge of math. Now in the last 10 years satellites
have measured the rate of motion of the Pacific plate and the numbers
8.6-9.0 cm/yr compared to 9.0 cm/yr are the statistically the same.
I think the implications are obvious but here are a few questions that come
from just this data:
1) All YEC's I have talked to say the Hawaiian Islands were formed either
in the later stages of the Flood or are post-flood. How did such a linear
island chain show progressive age? Even given contamination, or xenoliths
why would islands be dated progressively older toward the northwest?
2) Vernon, regarding extrapolation. So if the rates of decay have changed
and we are unjustified in extrapolation then how could a current estimate
based on laser measurements from space give the same result as two
estimated ages divided by distance? If radioactive decay rates have
decreased exponentially over time as some suggest then the similarity of
these estimates is an incredible coincidence.
3) This data suggests that Pacific plate motion has been relatively
constant over time. Yet most YE models now include rapid continental drift
during or after the Flood. If this were the case the islands ages should
not show a linear relationship between distance and age. How can one
explain this?
I have found that all the complaints about radiometric dating deal with
generalizations most of which I have found do not apply in the case of the
Hawaiian Islands.
Joel Duff
crinoid@midwest.net
<http://scribers.midwest.net/crinoid/hawaii.htm>