Radiometric Dating and The Global Ocean Rift

[machomaas]

I really do want to see GOOD YEC theories. They are much more interesting than bad theories (or just plain factual errors that are often passed down from one YEC presentation to another).

[stupidtreehugger]

Water pressure has been shown to affect Argon emission in volcanic deposits. E.g Pasco Basin in Washington State, which was drilled and showed homogeneous trace elements and pillow basalts for 10 000 ft down indicating it was layed down over one year. Previous KAr analysis had shown it to be 17.5Myrs at the bottom and 6 at the top.

[stupidtreehugger]

Quantative results necessitate interpretation and presentation, and are always open to hegemony and personal desire. Empire Science depends on majority uniform paradigms, whereas the spirit of science traditionally enjoys ongoing, if hopefully progressive, disagreement. I'll continue to look for actual measurement results, really *me OFF how one seems to have to PAY to acquire the knowledge MY TAX has been used to aquire, because I cannot currently afford all these subscription science vultures.

[machomaas]

For instance, maybe someone proposes that decay rates were faster during the flood. Then we say "What about the potassium heating we just calculated?" Then a miracle may be proposed to exempt potassium. But then why do "old" rocks have about 3000 times more Ar than new rocks? Again one is tempted to invoke another miraculous change in physics to somehow get rid of this extra Ar between then and now. YEC's just don't have precise, QUANTITATIVE models for most of the processes they propose.

[machomaas]

But more than enough to melt the crust. Will enough heat be transmitted to actually boil the oceans maybe not but the consequences would be incredible to say the least. I don't have a problem with the invocation of miracles per se (ie there is no a priori reason why physics couldnt have been different in the past) but a miracle event should have testable consequences (often unintended). This invites a "slippery slope" of miracles to explain these effects.

[machomaas]

a factor of 4.5 billion. This results in there originally being about 2.5 times as much K-40 in the earth's crust as there is now. (I will send you the numbers I used and the calculations for this in a private email). The decay of this K-40 down to present levels results in about 18000 Joules of energy being released per gram of rock. Given the specific heat of rock this raises the entire earth's crust to a temp of about 38,000 degrees F ( not including melting heat).

[machomaas]

The method you used is interesting but not the one I used. (Note: If I use CAPS I'm not trying to shout, think of them like italics). In order to use an accelerated decay rate then the rates for a whole host of isotopes (U, Th, Rb, Sm, Os etc.) must be increased by the same FACTOR. Since they all have different mechanisms then I see no reason why K-40 in particular should not also be increased by the same factor. To compress 4.5Byr of decay into 1 year means rates must be increased by

[machomaas]

Do you believe that the water during the flood cooled the Earth? But in order for water to cool it must EVAPORATE. The ocean's would have been boiled away. Also if half-lives were much shorter then every living thing would have been fried by the radiation produced in their own bodies.

[stupidtreehugger]

Thanks for your comments machomaas. Evaporation would give a lot of rain, maybe even 40 days worth. Boiled. Well, talkorigins says that, but the energy given off depends on one's assumptions of the amounts of daughter elements present at the end of the formation of the primordial/sedimentary/volcani­c/extraterrestrial rocks available to us for examination, and the dark art of estimating how much e.g. argon has disappeared since. Fascinating, I definately want to get deeper into radiometrics.

[stupidtreehugger]

Body-frying. Living creatures have what, very small proportions of the radioactive isotopes of carbon and potassium?

[machomaas]

I appreciate your interest in this. Check out "isochron methods" it does not depend on the amount of parent isotope originally present and is used with most isotopes used for dating (but not potassium-40). YEC's proposed accelerated decay rate to give an erroneous 'old' age. Because its unlikely that leaching processes could produce the dates for different isotopes in different minerals that have undergone different amounts of weathering. Therefore a global mechanism is necessary.

[machomaas]

But then all isotopes would have their decay rates accelerated by the same factor including K-40. I then merely extrapolated BACWARDS from the amount of K-40 currently present in the crust (there is quite a lot). My "back of the envelope" calculation is that enough heat would be generated just from K-40 to raise the temperature of the crust to 20,000Kelvin. At least 20 times higher than the melting point of most rocks.

You get about 40millirems of radiation from potassium each year.

[machomaas]

Avg yearly dose is 300millirems. So yes you do receive a substantial amount of radiation from this source.

Whew, sorry for the long post.

And what is the music - at first it sounds like funkadelic but then it seems like something else.

[machomaas]

Sorry I forgot it was the soul searchers. (Yes, I DID watch your entire video :) Just not during this post.)

[stupidtreehugger]

machomaas, I got up to my eyeballs in masses and isotope fractions and moles and specific heats and calories per MeV etc, and then I realized:

"extrapolated BACWARDS from the amount of K-40 currently present in the crust"? To what? The amount that would have decayed at current rates? Or what rates?

So it did arithmetic with total current atmospheric Ar40, assuming it was 100% radiogenic and represented 11.2% of parent K40. Problems:

[stupidtreehugger]

1. I can't find any definitive Kg earth atmosphere see e.g hypertextbook.comFSfactsFS 1999FS LouiseLiu.shtml - encyclopedias appear to vary by 6 orders of magnitude, but they're all . In my calcs that gave between 143 000 and .143 celsius rise across crust mass if K40 spontaneously decayed to give total current Ar40 in air. If I take the compatibilized 5x10e18KG that would be 14,300 K, but the link above undermines the soundness of the figure

[stupidtreehugger]

2. How much of any extra heat would dissipate into space, or, as mentioned dissipate in extra rain cycles?

3. How much earth Ar leaks into space? Might make the calc hotter.

4. Numbers for total K or Ar in earth crust and mantle (or even core?) appear unknown? Many listings ignore K/Ar in mantle, some mention it as part of volcanic gassing.

[stupidtreehugger]

5. The assumption that all Ar40 is essentially radiogenic, and all Ar36/38 primordial is regularly applied at a whole-planetary level, but clearly cannot be correct for neither evolution nor young-earth scenarios:

Evolution posits that all solar elements and our earth arose from a nebula left over from a supernova. Such a nova would have contained unknown proportions of K and Ar. In the time between nova and planet formation appreciable amounts of K would have turned into Ar40.

[stupidtreehugger]

There appears no even remotely feasible way of knowing how long the pre-solar nebula floated around for. Was it a single nebula? Was it seeded by with foreign objects to precipitate gravitational formation? Most other stars around us are pretty different to ours. Anyway, it seems much of the Ar40 in the air and the rocks COULD and WOULD be from before the earth formed.

Young Earth scenarios would likely want amounts of primordial Ar40 present to explain today's amounts.

[machomaas]

Where is the Pangean Sea? Subducted.

[machomaas]

I can't believe you quote NASA pamphlets for KIDS as evidence that NASA is hiding evidence of water in space. If they were really hiding it then why were you able to find the info in the first place?

[stupidtreehugger]

Mm, not hiding as such. Its about the many distinct differences between the 3 worlds of scientific observations and papers, the institutional digestion of papers into paradigms, and their output through education and mass media. Education and mass media perpetuate much science that has long since been disproved, or that is entirely spurious and wishful to begin with.