Chapter 4

What about
carbon dating?
• How does the carbon ‘clock’ work?
• Is it reliable?
• What does carbon dating really show?
• What about other radiometric dating methods?
• Is there evidence that the Earth is young?

P
EOPLE who ask about carbon-14 (14C) dating usually want to
know about the radiometric1 dating methods that are claimed to
give millions and billions of years—carbon dating can only give
thousands of years. People wonder how millions of years could be
squeezed into the biblical account of history.
Clearly, such huge time periods cannot be fitted into the Bible without
compromising what the Bible says about the goodness of God and the
origin of sin, death and suffering—the reason Jesus came into the world
(see Chapter 2).
Christians, by definition, take the statements of Jesus Christ seriously.
He said, ‘But from the beginning of the creation God made them male
1. Also known as isotope or radioisotope dating.
68~Chapter 4

and female’ (Mark 10:6). This only makes sense with a time line
beginning with the creation week thousands of years ago. It makes no
sense at all if man appeared at the end of billions of years.
We will deal with carbon dating first and then with the other dating
methods.

How the carbon clock works

Carbon has unique properties that are essential for life on Earth. Familiar
to us as the black substance in charred wood, as diamonds, and as the
graphite in ‘lead’ pencils, carbon comes in several forms, or isotopes.
One rare form has atoms that are 14 times as heavy as hydrogen atoms:
carbon-14, or 14C, or radiocarbon.
Carbon-14 is made when cosmic rays knock neutrons out of atomic
nuclei in the upper atmosphere. These displaced neutrons, now moving
fast, hit ordinary nitrogen (14N) at lower altitudes, converting it into
14
C. Unlike common carbon (12C), 14C is unstable and slowly decays,
changing back into nitrogen and releasing energy. This instability makes
it radioactive.
Ordinary carbon (12C) is found in the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the
air, which is taken up
Upper 14
C
by plants, which in turn atmosphere 14
C in carbon
are eaten by animals. conversion dioxide taken
So a bone, or a leaf of of 14N to 14C up by plants
a tree, or even a piece
of wooden furniture, 14
N
con­tains carbon. When
Some loss of
14
C has been formed, 14
C by decay
like ordinary carbon
(12C), it combines with
oxygen to give carbon 14C regained as
dioxide (14CO2), and so it animals eat plants
also gets cycled through
the cells of plants and
animals.
14
N
Loss of 14C by
We can take a sample After death: decay and no
of air, count how many replacement
12
C atoms there are for from eating
every 14 C atom, and Figure 1. 14C is gained by living things but lost after
calculate the 14 C/ 12 C death.
 What about carbon dating?~69

(Decreases
Total carbon-12 and -14 in

14
C with time) C
14
C not
specimen (e.g. wood)
14
14
C measurable

C
12

(amount  12
C  12
C  12
C
constant)

Moment of death Old Older ‘Infinite’ age

Figure 2. After death, the amount of 12C remains constant, but the amount of 14C de-
creases.

ratio. Because 14C is so well mixed up with 12C, we expect to find that
this ratio is the same if we sample a leaf from a tree, or a part of your
body.
In living things, although 14C atoms are constantly changing back
to N, they are still exchanging carbon with their surroundings, so the
14

mixture remains about the same as in the atmosphere. However, as

soon as a plant or animal dies, the 14C atoms which decay are no longer
replaced, so the amount of 14C in that once-living thing decreases as
time goes on (Figure 1). In other words, the 14C/12C ratio gets smaller.
So, we have a ‘clock’ which starts ticking the moment some­­thing dies
(Figure 2).
Obviously, this works only for things which were once living. It
can­not be used to date volcanic rocks, for ex­am­p­­le.
The rate of decay of 14C is such that half of an amount will convert
back to 14N in 5,730 ± 40 years. This is the ‘half-life’. So, in two half-
lives, or 11,460 years, only one-quarter will be left. Thus, if the amount
of 14C relative to 12C in a sample is one-quarter of that in living organisms
at present, then it has a theoretical age of 11,460 years. Anything over
about 50,000 years old should theoretically have no detectable 14C left.
That is why radiocarbon dating cannot give mil­lions of years. In fact,
if a sample contains 14C, it is good evidence that it is not millions of
years old.
However, things are not quite so simple. First­ly, plants discrim­
inate against carbon dioxide containing 14C. That is, they take up less
than would be expected and so they test older than they really are.
Furthermore, different types of plants dis­crim­inate differently. This also
has to be corrected for.2

2. Today, a stable carbon isotope, 13C, is measured as an indication of the level of discrimination
against 14C.
70~Chapter 4

Secondly, the ratio of 14C/12C in the atmosphere has not been

constant—for example it was higher before the industrial era when the
massive burning of fossil fuels released a lot of carbon dioxide that was
depleted in 14C. This would make things which died at that time appear
older in terms of carbon dating. Then there was a rise in 14CO2 with
the advent of atmospheric testing of atomic bombs in the 1950s.3 This
would make things carbon­-dated from that time appear younger than
their true age.
Measurement of 14C in historically dated objects (e.g. seeds in
the graves of historically dated tombs) enables the level of 14C in the
atmosphere at that time to be estimated, and so partial calibration of the
‘clock’ is possible. Accordingly, carbon dating carefully applied to items
from historical times can be useful. However, even with such historical
calibration, archaeologists do not regard 14C dates as absolute because
of frequent anomalies. They rely more on dating methods that link into
historical records.
Outside the range of recorded history, calibration of the 14C ‘clock’
is not possible.4

Other factors affecting carbon dating

The amount of cosmic rays penetrating Earth’s atmosphere affects the

amount of 14C produced and therefore the dating system. The amount
of cosmic rays reaching the Earth varies with the sun’s activity, and with
the Earth’s passage through magnetic clouds as the solar system travels
around the Milky Way galaxy.
The strength of the Earth’s magnetic field affects the amount of
cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. A stronger magnetic field deflects
more cosmic rays away from the Earth. Overall, the energy of the Earth’s
magnetic field has been decreasing,5 so more 14C is being produced now

3. Radiation from atomic testing, like cosmic rays, causes the conversion of 14N to 14C.
4. Tree ring dating (dendrochronology) has been used in an attempt to extend the calibration
of carbon-14 dating earlier than historical records allow, but this depends on temporal
placement of fragments of wood (from long-dead trees) using carbon-14 dating, assuming
straight-line extrapolation backwards. Then cross-matching of ring patterns is used
to calibrate the carbon ‘clock’—a somewhat circular process which does not give an
independent calibration of the carbon dating system.
5. McDonald, K.L. and Gunst, R.H., 1965. An analysis of the earth’s magnetic field from
1835 to 1965. ESSA Technical Report IER 46-IES, U.S. Government Printing Office,
Washington, D.C., p. 14.
 What about carbon dating?~71

→
→
Solar ‘wind’

The strength of Earth’s magnetic field affects carbon dating.

than in the past. This will make old things look older than they really
are.
Also, the Genesis Flood would have greatly upset the carbon balance.
The Flood buried a huge amount of carbon, which became coal, oil, etc.,
lowering the total 12C in the biosphere (including the atmosphere—plants
regrowing after the Flood absorb CO2 which is not replaced by the decay
of the buried vegetation).6 Total 14C is also proportionately lowered at
this time, but whereas no terrestrial process generates any more 12C, 14C
is continually being produced, and at a rate which does not depend on
carbon levels (it comes from nitrogen). Therefore the 14C level relative
to 12C increases after the Flood. So the 14C/12C ratio in plants/animals/
the atmosphere before the Flood had to be lower than what it is now.
Unless this effect (which is additional to the mag­netic field issue
just discussed) were corrected for, carbon dating of fossils formed in the
Flood would give ages much older than the true ages.
Creationist researchers have suggested that dates of 35,000–45,000
years should be recalibrated to the biblical date for the Flood.7 Such a
recalibration makes sense of anomalous data from carbon dating—for

6. Taylor, B.J., 1994. Carbon dioxide in the antediluvian atmosphere. Creation Research
Society Quarterly 30(4):193–197.
7. Brown, R.H., 1992. Correlation of C-14 age with real time. Creation Research Society
Quarterly 29:45–47. Musk ox muscle was dated at 24,000 years, but hair was dated at
17,000 years. Corrected dates bring the difference in age approximately within the life span
of a musk ox. With sloth cave dung, standard carbon dates of the lower layers suggested
less than 2 pellets per year were produced by the sloths. Correcting the dates increased
the number to a more realistic 1.4 per day.
 72~Chapter 4

The Flood Industrial Age

Buried plants produce
coal, oil and gas, Burning coal, oil and gas
locking away releases previously
Regrowth of plants stored carbon into the
large
amounts New plants grow, atmosphere.
of 12C. depleting the atmosphere of
carbon dioxide.

CO2 concentration
in atmosphere

n
ficatio
deserti
g and
clearin CO 2
Ratio 14C : 12C s e
relea

(Pre-Flood) Time (not to scale) (Post-Flood)

Figure 3. Likely effect of the Flood and man’s activities on carbon isotopes, which affect carbon dating.
 What about carbon dating?~73

example, very discordant ‘dates’ for different parts of a frozen musk ox

carcass from Alaska and an inordinately slow rate of accumulation of
ground sloth dung pellets in the older layers of a cave where the layers
were carbon dated.7
Also, volcanoes emit much CO2 depleted in 14C. Since the Flood was
accompanied by much volcanism (see Chapters 10, 11, 12, 17), fossils
formed in the early post-Flood period would give radiocarbon ages older
than they really are.
In summary, the carbon-14 method, when corrected for the effects
of the Flood, can give useful results, but needs to be applied carefully.
It does not give dates of millions of years and when corrected properly
fits well with the biblical Flood (Figure 3).

Other radiometric dating methods

There are various other radiometric dating methods used today to

give ages of millions or billions of years for rocks. These techniques,
unlike carbon dating, mostly use the relative concentrations of parent
and daughter products in radioactive decay chains. For example,
potassium-40 decays to argon-40, uranium-238 decays to lead-206 via
other elements like radium, uranium-235 decays to lead-207, rubidium-87
decays to strontium-87, etc. These techniques are applied to igneous
rocks, and are normally seen as giving the time since solidification.
The isotope concentrations can be measured very accurately,
but isotope concentrations are not dates. To derive ages from such
measurements, unprovable assumptions have to be made (see hourglass
diagram below) such as:

Parent ?
?
?
Daughter ? ?
The hourglasses represent radiometric dating. It is assumed that we know the amount of
parent and daughter elements in the original sample, the rate of decay is constant, and
no parent or daughter material has been added or removed.
74~Chapter 4

1. The starting conditions are known (for example, that there was no
daughter isotope present at the start, or that we know how much was
there).
2. Decay rates have always been constant.
3. Systems were closed or isolated so that no parent or daughter isotopes
were lost or added.
Isotope concentrations, or ratios, can be measured very
accurately, but isotope concentrations, or ratios,
are not dates.

There are patterns in the isotope data

There is plenty of evidence that the radioisotope dating systems are not
the infallible techniques many think, and that they are not measuring
millions of years. However, there are still patterns to be explained. For
example, deeper rocks often tend to give older ‘ages’. Creationists agree
that the deeper rocks are generally older, but not by millions of years.
Geologist John Woodmorappe, in his devastating critique of radioactive
dating,8 points out that there are other large-scale trends in the rocks that
have nothing to do with radioactive decay.

‘Bad’ dates?

When a ‘date’ differs from that expected, researchers readily invent

excuses for rejecting the result. The common application of such
posterior reasoning shows that radiometric dating has serious problems.
Woodmorappe cites hundreds of examples of excuses used to explain
‘bad’ dates.8
For example, researchers applied posterior reasoning to the dating
of Australopithecus ramidus fossils.9 Most samples of basalt closest to
the fossil-bearing strata gave dates of about 23 Ma (Mega annum, million
years) by the argon-argon method. The authors decided that was ‘too
old’, according to their beliefs about the place of the fossils in the
evolutionary grand scheme of things. So they looked at some basalt
further removed from the fossils and selected 17 of 26 samples to get an

8. Woodmorappe, J., 1999. The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods, Institute for Creation
Research, San Diego, California.
9. WoldeGabriel, G., et al., 1994. Ecological and temporal placement of early Pliocene
hominids at Aramis, Ethiopia. Nature 371:330–333.
 What about carbon dating?~75

acceptable maximum age of 4.4 Ma. The other nine samples again gave
much older dates but the authors decided they must be contaminated,
and discarded them. That is how radiometric dating works. It is very
much driven by the existing long-age worldview that pervades academia
today.
A similar story surrounds the dating of the primate skull known as
KNM-ER 1470.10,11 This started with an initial 212 to 230 Ma, which,
according to the fossils, was considered way off the mark (humans
‘weren’t around then’). Various other attempts were made to date the
volcanic rocks in the area. Over the years an age of 2.9 Ma was settled
upon because of the agreement between several different published
studies (although the studies involved selection of ‘good’ from ‘bad’
results, just like Australopithecus ramidus).
However, preconceived notions about human evolution could not
cope with a skull like 1470 being ‘that old’. A study of pig fossils in
Africa readily convinced most anthropologists that the 1470 skull was
much younger. After this was widely accepted, further studies of the
rocks brought the radiometric age down to about 1.9 Ma—again several
studies ‘confirmed’ this date. Such is the dating game.
Are we suggesting that evolutionists are conspiring to massage the
data to get the answers they want? No, not generally. It is simply that all
observations must fit the prevailing paradigm. The paradigm, or belief
system, of molecules-to-man evolution over eons of time, is so strongly
entrenched it is not questioned—it is a ‘fact’. So every observation must
fit this paradigm. Unconsciously, the researchers, who are supposedly
‘objective scientists’ in the eyes of the public, select the observations to
fit the basic belief system.
We must remember that the past is not open to the normal processes
of experimental science; that is, repeatable experiments in the present.
A scientist cannot do experiments on events that happened in the past.
Scientists do not measure the age of rocks, they measure isotope con-
centrations, and these can be measured extremely accurately. However,
the ‘age’ is calculated using assumptions about the past that cannot be
proven.
We should remember God’s admonition to Job, ‘Where were you
when I laid the foundations of the earth?’ (Job 38:4).

10. Lubenow, M., 1995. The pigs took it all. Creation 17(3):36–38.
11. Lubenow, M., 1993. Bones of Contention, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, pp.
247–266.
76~Chapter 4

Those involved with unrecorded history gather information in the

present and construct stories about the past. The level of proof demanded
for such stories seems to be much less than for studies in the empirical sci-
ences, such as physics, chemistry, molecular biology, physiology, etc.
Williams, an expert in the environmental fate of radioactive elements,
identified 17 flaws in the isotope dating reported in just three widely
respected seminal papers that supposedly established the age of the
Earth at 4.6 billion years.12 John Woodmorappe has produced an incisive
critique of these dating methods.8 He exposes hundreds of myths that
have grown up around the techniques. He shows that the few ‘good’
dates left after the ‘bad’ dates are filtered out could easily be explained
as fortunate coincidences.

What date would you like?

The forms issued by radioisotope laboratories for submission with

samples to be dated commonly ask how old the sample is expected to
be. Why? If the techniques were absolutely objective and reliable, such
information should not be necessary. Presumably the laboratories know
that anomalous dates are common, so they need some check on whether
they have obtained a ‘good’ date.

Testing radiometric dating methods

If the long-age dating techniques were really objective means of finding

the ages of rocks, they should work in situations where we know the
age. Furthermore, different techniques should consistently agree with
one another.

Methods should work reliably on things of known age

There are many examples where the dating methods give ‘dates’ that
are wrong for rocks of known age. One example is K-Ar ‘dating’ of
five historical andesite lava flows from Mt Ngauruhoe in New Zealand.
Although one lava flow occurred in 1949, three in 1954, and one in 1975,
the ‘dates’ ranged from less than 0.27 to 3.5 Ma.13
12. Williams, A.R., 1992. Long-age isotope dating short on credibility. CEN Tech. J. 6(1):2–
5.
13. Snelling, A.A., 1998. The cause of anomalous potassium-argon ‘ages’ for recent andesite
flows at Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, and the implications for potassium-argon ‘dating’.
Proc. 4th ICC, pp. 503–525.
 What about carbon dating?~77

Lava flows of known age often give wrong radioisotope dates.

Again, using hindsight, it is argued that ‘excess’ argon from the

magma (molten rock) was retained in the rock when it solidified. The
secular scientific literature lists many examples of excess argon causing
dates of millions of years in rocks of known historical age.14 This excess
appears to have come from the upper mantle, below the Earth’s crust.
This is consistent with a young world—the argon has had too little time to
escape.15 If excess argon can cause exaggerated dates for rocks of known
age, then why should we trust the method for rocks of unknown age?
Other techniques, such as the use of isochrons,16 make different
assumptions about starting conditions, but there is a growing recognition
that such ‘fool-proof’ techniques can also give ‘bad’ dates. So data are
again selected according to what the researcher already believes about
the age of the rock.

14. Ref. 13 lists many instances. For example, six cases were reported by Krummenacher,
D., 1970. Isotopic composition of argon in modern surface rocks. Earth and Planetary
Science Letters 8:109–117; five were reported by Dalrymple, G.B., 1969. 40Ar/36Ar analysis
of historic lava flows. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 6:47–55. A large excess was
reported in Fisher, D.E., 1970. Excess rare gases in a subaerial basalt from Nigeria. Nature
232:60–61.
15. Ref. 13, p. 520.
16. The isochron technique involves collecting a number of rock samples from different parts
of the rock unit being dated. The concentration of a parent radioactive isotope, such as
rubidium-87, is graphed against the concentration of a daughter isotope, such as strontium-
87, for all the samples. A straight line is drawn through these points, representing the ratio
of the parent:daughter, from which a ‘date’ is calculated. If the line is of good fit and the
‘age’ is acceptable it is considered a ‘good’ date. The method involves dividing both the
parent and daughter concentrations by the concentration of a similar stable isotope—in
this case, strontium-86. See pp. 79–80.
78~Chapter 4

Geologist Dr Steve Austin sampled basalt from the base of the Grand
Canyon strata and from lava that spilled over the edge of the canyon.17
By evolutionary reckoning, the latter should be a billion years younger
than the basalt from the bottom. Standard laboratories analysed the
isotopes. The rubidium-strontium isochron technique suggested that the
recent lava flow was 270 Ma older than the basalts beneath the Grand
Canyon—an impossibility.

Different dating techniques should consistently agree

If the dating methods are an objective and reliable means of determining

ages, they should agree. If a chemist were measuring the sugar content
of blood, all valid methods for the determination would give the same
answer (within the limits of experimental error). However, with
radiometric dating, the different techniques often give quite different
results.
In the study of Grand Canyon rocks by Austin,17 different techniques
gave different results (see Table below). Again all sorts of reasons can
be suggested for the ‘bad’ dates, but this is again posterior reasoning.
Techniques that give results that can be dismissed just because they don’t
agree with what we already believe cannot be considered objective.
In Australia, some wood found in Tertiary basalt was clearly buried
in the lava flow that formed the basalt, as can be seen from the charring.
The wood was ‘dated’ by radiocarbon (14C) analysis at about 45,000
years old, but the basalt was ‘dated’ by the potassium-argon method at
45 million years old!18

Method ‘Age’
Six potassium-argon model ages 10,000 years to 117 Ma
Five rubidium-strontium ages 1,270–1,390 Ma
Rubidium-strontium isochron 1,340 Ma
Lead-lead isochron 2,600 Ma
Radiometric ‘ages’, using different methods, for bas­altic rocks most geologists ac-
cept as only thousands of years old, from the Uinkaret Plateau of the Grand Canyon
(Ma = millions of years).17

17. Austin, S.A. (ed.) 1994. Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe. Institute for Creation
Research, Santee, California, pp. 120–131.
18. Snelling, A.A., 1998. Radiometric dating in conflict. Creation 20(1):24–27.
 What about carbon dating?~79

Isotope ratios of uraninite crystals from the Koongarra uranium body

in the Northern Territory of Australia gave lead-lead isochron ages of
841 ± 140 Ma.19 This contrasts with an age of 1550–1650 Ma based on
other isotope ratios,20 and ages of 275, 61, 0, 0, and 0 Ma from thorium/
lead (232Th/208Pb) ratios in five uraninite grains.19 The latter figures are
significant because thorium-derived dates should be the more reliable,
since thorium is less mobile than the uranium minerals that are the parents
of the lead isotopes in the lead-lead system.19 The ‘zero’ ages in this case
are consistent with the Bible.

More evidence something is wrong

14
C in fossils supposedly millions of years old
Fossils older than 100,000 years should have too little 14C to measure,
but dating labs consistently find 14C, well above background levels, in
fossils supposedly many millions of years old.21,22 For example, no source
of coal has been found that lacks 14C, yet this fossil fuel supposedly
ranges up to hundreds of millions of years old. Fossils in rocks dated
at 1–500 Ma by long-age radioisotope dating methods gave an average
radiocarbon ‘age’ of about 50,000 years, much less than the limits of
modern carbon dating22 (see pp. 65–69 for why even these radiocarbon
ages are inflated). Furthermore, there was no pattern of younger to older
in the carbon dates that correlated with the evolutionary/uniformitarian
‘ages’. 22
This evidence is consistent with the fossil-bearing rock layers being
formed in the year-long global catastrophe of the biblical Flood, as
flood geologists since Nicholas Steno (1631–1687) have recognized.
Even Precambrian (‘older than 545 Ma’) graphite, which is not of
organic origin, contains 14C above background levels.22 This is consistent
with Earth itself being only thousands of years old, as a straightforward
reading of the Bible would suggest.

19. Snelling, A.A., 1995. The failure of U-Th-Pb ‘dating’ at Koongarra, Australia. Journal of
Creation 9(1):71–92.
20. Maas, R., 1989. Nd-Sr isotope constraints on the age and origin of unconformity-type
uranium deposits in the Alligator Rivers Uranium Field, Northern Territory, Australia.
Economic Geology 84:64–90.
21. Giem, P., 2001. Carbon-14 content of fossil carbon. Origins 51:6–30.
22. Baumgardner, J.R., Snelling, A.S., Humphreys, D.R., and Austin, S.A., 2003. Measurable
14
C in fossilized organic materials: confirming the young earth creation-flood model.
Proc. 5th ICC pp. 127–142.
80~Chapter 4

It is an unsolved mystery to evolutionists as to why coal has 14C in

it,23 or wood supposedly many millions of years old still has 14C present,
but it makes perfect sense in a creationist worldview.

Many physical evidences contradict the

‘billions of years’

Of the methods that have been used to estimate the age of the Earth, 90%
point to an age far less than the billions of years asserted by evolutionists.
A few of them:
• Evidence for rapid formation of geological strata, as in the biblical
Flood. Some of the evidences are: lack of erosion between rock
layers supposedly separated in age by many millions of years; lack of
disturbance of rock strata by biological activity (worms, roots, etc.);
lack of soil layers; polystrate fossils (which traverse several rock
layers vertically—these could not have stood vertically for eons of
time while they slowly got buried); thick layers of ‘rock’ bent without
fracturing, indicating that the rock was all soft when bent; and more.
See Chapter 15 (pp. 183–186) and books by geologists Morris24 and
Austin.17

Cross-section of Grand Canyon geology showing the Kaibab upwarp. Plastic folding of
strata shows that the layers were still soft when bent, consistent with them all being laid
down quickly—as in Noah’s Flood (after Morris24).

23. Lowe, D.C., 1989. Problems associated with the use of coal as a source of 14C free
background material. Radiocarbon 31:117–120.
24. Morris, J., 1994. The Young Earth. Creation-Life Publishers, Colorado Springs,
Colorado.
 What about carbon dating?~81

• Red blood cells and hemoglobin have been found in some

(unfossilized!) dinosaur bone. But these could not last more than a
few thousand years—certainly not the 65 Ma since the last dinosaurs
lived, according to evolutionists.25
• The Earth’s magnetic field has been decaying so fast that it looks like
it is less than 10,000 years old. Rapid reversals during the Flood year
and fluctuations shortly after would have caused the field energy to
drop even faster.26,27
• A supernova is an explosion of a massive star—the explosion briefly
outshines the rest of the galaxy. Supernova remnants (SNRs) should
keep expanding for hundreds of thousands of years, according to the
physical equations. Yet there are no very old, widely expanded (Stage
3) SNRs, and few moderately old (Stage 1) ones in our galaxy, the
Milky Way, or in its satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds. This is
just what we would expect for ‘young’ galaxies that have not existed
long enough for wide expansion.28,29
• Continents erode so rapidly that they should have worn away
completely many times over in billions of years.30 The problem is
more acute in mountainous regions, and there are also huge plains
that are supposedly very old with hardly any erosion. The average
height reduction for all the continents of the world is about 6.0 mm
(0.24 inches) per 100 years.31 A height of 150 kilometres (93 miles) of
continent would have eroded in 2.5 billion years (the uniformitarian
age of the cores of the continents). If erosion had been going on
for billions of years, no continents would remain on the earth. For
example, North America should have been levelled in just 10 million
years if erosion has happened at the average rate. Note that this is an
upper age limit, not an actual age.

25. Wieland, C., 1997. Sensational dinosaur blood report! Creation 19(4):42–43, based on
Schweitzer, M. and Staedter, T., 1997. The real Jurassic Park. Earth, June, pp. 55–57.
26. Humphreys, D.R., 1986. Reversals of the earth’s magnetic field during the Genesis Flood.
Proc. First ICC 2:113–126.
27. Sarfati, J.D., 1998. The earth’s magnetic field: evidence that the earth is young. Creation
20(2):15–19.
28. Davies, K., 1994. Distribution of supernova remnants in the galaxy. Proc. 3rd ICC,
pp. 175–184.
29. Sarfati, J.D., 1998. Exploding stars point to a young universe. Creation 19(3):46–49.
30. Walker, T., Eroding ages, Creation 22(2):18–21, March–May 2000; <creation.com/
erosion>.
31. Roth, A., 1998. Origins: Linking Science and Scripture, Review and Herald Publishing,
Hagerstown, p. 271, cites Dott and Batten, Evolution of the Earth, McGraw-Hill, NY, USA,
p. 155, 1988, and a number of others.
82~Chapter 4

• Salt is entering the sea much faster than it is escaping. The sea is
not nearly salty enough for this to have been happening for billions
of years. Even granting generous assumptions to evolutionists, such
as the sea having no salt to start with, the sea could not be more
than 62 Ma old—far younger than the billions of years believed by
evolutionists. Again, this indicates a maximum age, not the actual
age.32,33
Dr Russell Humphreys gives other processes inconsistent with
billions of years in the booklet Evidence for a Young World.
However, creationists cannot prove the age of the Earth using a
particular scientific method, any more than evolutionists can. They
realize that all science is tentative because we do not have all the data,
especially when dealing with the past. This is true of both creationist and
evolutionist scientific arguments—evolutionists have had to abandon
many ‘proofs’ for evolution just as creationists have also had to modify
their arguments. The atheistic evolutionist W.B. Provine admitted:
‘Most of what I learned of the field [evolutionary biology] in graduate
(1964–68) school is either wrong or significantly changed.’34
Creationists understand the limitations of dating methods better
than evolutionists who claim that they can use processes observed in
the present to ‘prove’ that Earth is billions of years old. In reality, all
dating methods, including those that point to a young Earth, rely on
unprovable assumptions.
Creationists ultimately date the Earth historically using the
chronology of the Bible. This is because they believe that this is an
accurate eyewitness account of world history, which bears the evidence
within it that it is the Word of God, and therefore totally reliable and
error-free (see Chapter 1 for some of the evidences).

Orphan radiohalos

Decaying radioactive particles in solid rock cause spherical zones of

damage in the surrounding crystal structure. A speck of radioactive
element such as Uranium-238, for example, will leave a sphere of

32. Austin S.A. and Humphreys, D.R., 1990. The sea’s missing salt: a dilemma for evolutionists.
Proc. 2nd ICC pp. 17–33.
33. Sarfati, J.D., 1999. Salty seas: Evidence for a young earth. Creation 21(1):16–17.
34. A review of Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science (National Academy
of Science USA, 1998) by Dr Will B. Provine, online at <http://fp.bio.utk.edu/darwin/
NAS_guidebook/provine_1.html>, 18 Feb. 1999.
 What about carbon dating?~83

discoloration of characteristically different radius for each element it

produces in its decay chain to lead-206.35 Viewed in cross-section with
a microscope, these spheres appear as rings called radiohalos. Dr Gentry
has researched radiohalos for many years, and published his results in
leading scientific journals.36

Photo by Robert Gentry

A concentric series of radiohalos

Some of the intermediate decay products—such as the polonium

isotopes—have very short half-lives (they decay quickly). For example,
214
Po has a half-life of just 164 microseconds. Curiously, rings created
by polonium decay are often found without the parent uranium halos.
Now, the polonium has to get into the rock before the rock solidifies, but
it cannot derive from a uranium speck in the solid rock, otherwise there
would be a uranium halo. This suggests the rock formed very quickly.37
There possibly also had to be a period of rapid decay of uranium to
produce the amount of polonium that is seen. Orphan halos speak of
conditions in the past that do not fit with the uniformitarian view of
Earth history, which is the basis of the radiometric dating systems.

Do radiometric ‘dates’ have any meaning?

Geologist John Woodmorappe, after analyzing 500 papers published

on radioisotope dating, concluded that isotope dating was rife with

35. Only those that undergo alpha decay (releasing a helium nucleus) produce a halo.
36. Gentry, R.V., 1986. Creation’s Tiny Mystery, Earth Science Associates, Knoxville, Tennessee
(see references therein).
37. Snelling, A.A. and Armitage, M.H., 2003. Radiohalos—a tale of three granitic plutons.
Proc. 5th ICC pp. 243–267.
84~Chapter 4

circular reasoning, and story telling to fit the preconceived ideas of the
researchers.8
The isochron dating technique16 was once thought to be infallible
because it supposedly covered the assumptions about starting condi-
tions and closed systems. Geologist Dr Andrew Snelling reported on
‘dating’ of the Koongarra uranium deposits in the Northern Territory of
Australia, primarily using the lead-lead isochron method.38 He found
that even 113 highly weathered soil samples from the area, which are
definitely not closed systems (leaching of parent and daughter isotopes
would invalidate the ‘dates’), gave a very nice looking ‘isochron’ line
with an ‘age’ of 1,445±20 Ma. Other methods gave ‘ages’ ranging from
even higher to all the way down to zero years.
Such ‘false isochrons’ are so common that a whole terminology has
grown up to describe them, such as apparent isochron, mantle isochron,
pseudoisochron, secondary isochron, inherited isochron, erupted iso-
chron, mixing line and mixing isochron. Zheng wrote:
‘… some of the basic assumptions of the conventional Rb-Sr
[rubidium-strontium] isochron method have to be modified and an
observed isochron does not certainly define valid age information
for a geological system, even if a goodness of fit of the experimental
results is obtained in plotting 87Sr/86Sr against 87Rb/86Sr. This
problem cannot be overlooked, especially in evaluating the
numerical time scale. Similar questions can also arise in applying
Sm-Nd [samarium-neodymium] and U-Pb [uranium-lead] isochron
methods.’39
Even with ‘isochrons’, part of the isochron line is interpreted
as not being due to age—how can one part of the line be attributed to
age but the other part of the same line be ignored as irrelevant where
it cannot be due to age? Furthermore, even non-radioactive elements
will give nice straight lines when ratios of concentrations are plotted.40
Clearly, such patterns are not due to age at all.
Another popular dating method is the uranium-lead concordia
technique. This effectively combines the two uranium-lead decay
series into one diagram. Results that lie on the concordia curve have the
same ‘age’ according to the two lead series and are called ‘concordant’.

38. Snelling, A.A., 1985. The Failure of U-Th-Pb ‘Dating’ at Koongarra, Australia. TJ 9(1):72–92.
39. Zheng, Y.F., 1989. Influence of the nature of initial Rb-Sr system on isochron validity. Chemical
Geology 80:1–16 (p. 14).
40. Walker, T., The Somerset Dam igneous complex, south-east Queensland, Honours thesis [1st class
Honours or Summa cum laude awarded], Dept of Earth Sciences, Uni. of Queensland, 1998.
 What about carbon dating?~85

However, the results from zircons, for example, generally lie off the
concordia curve—they are discordant (disagree). Numerous models,
or stories, have been developed to explain such data.41 However, such
story-telling is not objective science that proves an old Earth.
Dr Snelling has suggested that fractionation (sorting) of elements
in the molten state in the Earth’s mantle could be a significant factor in
explaining the ratios of isotope concentrations which are interpreted as
ages. This would also explain the prevalence of ‘false isochrons’. But
how does a geologist tell a false isochron from a ‘good’ one? Results
that agree with accepted ages are considered ‘good’. This is circular
reasoning and very bad science.
As 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.42 Cook noted that in ores from the Katanga
mine there was an abundance of lead-208, a stable isotope, but no Tho-
rium-232 as a source of lead-208. Thorium has a long halflife (decays very
slowly) and is not easily leached out of the rock, so if the lead-208 came
from thorium decay, some thorium should still be there. Cook suggested
that perhaps the lead-208 came about by neutron capture conversion of
lead-206 to lead-207 to lead-208. However, a period of rapid radioactive
decay could also explain the data (see below). In either case the data are
consistent with an age of thousands of years, not millions of years.

Helium and heat: evidence for non-constant decay rates

Physicist Dr Robert Gentry has pointed out that the amount of helium
(helium derives from the decay of radioactive elements, such as uranium)
in zircons from deep (hot) bores is not consistent with an evolutionary age
of 1,500 Ma for the granite rocks in which they are found.36 The amount
of lead corresponds with current rates of decay of uranium acting over
the assumed timescale, but almost all the helium formed should have
diffused out of the crystals in that time. The diffusion rates of helium
have now been measured and they are very high (100,000 times greater
than evolutionary geologists had assumed), so the helium should not
be there if the radioactive decay had been going on at present rates for

41. Gebauer, D. and Grunenfelder, M., 1979. U-Th-Pb dating of minerals. In Jager , E. and Hunziker,
J.C. (eds). Lectures in Isotope Geology, Springer Verlag, New York, 105–131.
42. Cook, M.A., 1966. Prehistory and Earth Models, Max Parrish, London, 353 pp.
86~Chapter 4

the eons of time claimed by uniformitarians.43 Indeed, modeling of the

diffusion indicates that the ‘1.5 billion years’ worth of radioactive decay
occurred, but the rate of helium leakage dates these ‘billion-year-old’
zircons at 5,700 ± 2,000 years.43 The only sensible explanation for this
is that there has been a period of accelerated radioactive decay several
thousand years ago. Whatever caused such elevated rates of decay may
also have been responsible for the lead isotope anomalies documented
by Cook (above).
A period of accelerated decay would also solve the puzzle of the
amount of heat emanating from the Earth—an amount consistent with
the amount of radioactive decay that has occurred, but not with a billions
of years timescale.44
So, evidence is mounting to suggest a period of rapid radioactive
decay in the past, just thousands of years ago. Interestingly, the acceler-
ated decay seems to have affected the longest half-life isotopes most,
and particularly those involving alpha-decay.45

Conclusions

There are many lines of evidence that the radiometric dates are not the
objective evidence for an old Earth that many claim, and that the world
is really only thousands of years old. Although we don’t have all the
answers, we have lots of answers, and we do have the sure testimony of
the Word of God to the true history of the world.

43. Humphreys, R.D., Austin, S.A., Baumgardner, J.R. and Snelling, A.A., 2003. Helium
diffusion rates support accelerated nuclear decay. Proc. 5th ICC, Pittsburg, pp.175–195.
44. Baumgardner, J., Distribution of radioactive isotopes in the earth, ch. 3 in Vardiman, L.,
Snelling, A.A. and Chaffin, E.F. (eds), 2000. Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth,
Institute for Creation Research and Creation Research Society, USA.
45. Vardiman, L., Austin, S.A., Baumgardner, J.R., Chaffin, E.F., DeYoung, D.B., Humphreys,
D.R. and Snelling, A.A., 2003. Radioisotopes and the age of the earth. Proc. 5th ICC
pp. 337–348.