Rocks With Negative Dates

By Paul Nethercott

August 2013

 

Introduction

How reliable is radiometric dating? We are repeatedly told that it proves the Earth to be billions of years old. If radiometric dating is reliable than it should not contradict the evolutionary model. According to the Big Bang theory the age of the Universe is 10 to 15 billion years.¹ Standard evolutionist publications give the age of the universe as 13.75 Billion years. ^{2, 3}

 

Standard evolutionist geology views the Earth as being 4.5 billion years old. Here are some quotes from popular text: “The age of the Earth is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years.” ⁴ “The Solar System, formed between 4.53 and 4.58 billion years ago.” ¹ “The age of 4.54 billion years found for the Solar System and Earth.” ¹ “A valid age for the Earth of 4.55 billion years.” ^{5, 6}

 

Evolutionists give the age of the galaxy as “11 to 13 billion years for the age of the Milky Way Galaxy.” ^{1, 7} Let us remember this as we look at the following dating as given in secular science journals.

 

 

1. Ion Microprobe U-Pb Dating

These rocks from Japan were dated ⁸ in 2001 using the Rubidium/Strontium and Potassium/Argon method. If we run the isotopic ratios through Isoplot ⁹ and use formulas listed in standard geology books ¹⁰ we find that the rock samples ¹¹ gave ages between 5 billion years and negative years old! Since the Earth exists in the present how can rocks have formed in the future? How can a rock be older than the Earth? The author admits some of the dates are negative: “Though a negative age has no practical use, it does suggest that it is younger than 0.12 Ma.” ¹²

 

Table 1

 

Table 2

 

 

2. The Long Valley Rhyolitic

These rocks from California were dated ¹³ in 1997 using the Rubidium/Strontium and Potassium/Argon method. The rock samples gave ages between 1 million years and negative years old! Since the Earth exists in the present how can rocks have formed in the future? The author admits some of the dates are negative:

 

“The negative ages are a clear indication that some phases have not reached Sr isotope equilibration with their current host glass.” ¹⁴

 

“In contrast, feldspars from the second group yield mineral ages that are geologically unreasonable ranging from close to the eruption age of the Bishop Tuff to negative ages.” ¹⁵

 

 

3. Rn-Generated 206Pb

These rocks from South Africa were dated ¹⁶ in 1998 using the Uranium/Lead method. When we run the ratios ¹⁷ through Isoplot the rock samples gave ages between 543 and 6,400 million years old! Since the Earth exists in the present how can rocks have formed in the future? How can a rock be older than the Earth? According to the article the true age is between 2 and 2.6 billion years old: “Assigning a 2.02 Ga age of mineralization and constructing secondary isochrons for paragenetically early galena and chalcopyrite, ages of the source uraninite are calculated as 2.6-2.4 Ga.” ¹⁸

 

Table 3

 

The author admits some of the dates are negative: “Analyses lying even farther to the fight, with the implication of implausibly young and even negative ages, force us to consider alternative explanations for this subsidiary array.” ¹⁹

 

 

4. 40Argon/39 Argon Age of a Tholeiitic Basalt

These rocks from California were dated ²⁰ in 2006 using the Argon method. The rock samples gave ages ²¹ between 2,357 and -579 thousand years old! Since the Earth exists in the present how can rocks have formed in the future?  

 

Table 4

 

The author admits some of the dates are negative:  “The Ar isotopic data, when cast on an inverse isochron diagram, indicate that the first two steps are enriched in 36Ar and thus yield negative ages. These first two steps are most likely influenced by low-temperature alteration of the sample.” ²²

 

5. Isotopic Systematics of Ultramafic Xenoliths

These rocks from North China were dated ²³ in 2007 using the Rubidium/Strontium and Uranium/Lead methods. The rock samples gave ages ²⁴ between -3 and 9 billion years old! Since the Earth exists in the present how can rocks have formed in the future? How can a rock be 4.5 billion years older than the Earth? The author admits some of the dates are negative: “The Nd model ages for the individual data points are variable, from ~2.8 Ga to negative ages (Table 3), consistent with our earlier observation that REE patterns for all the samples display some degree of secondary metasomatic overprinting by LREE-enriched silicate melts.” ²⁵

 

If we run the isotopic ratios ²⁴ through Isoplot we get the ages listed in table 6. There is a 12,698 million year spread of dates between the youngest [Negative] and the oldest [Positive] ages.

 

Table 5

 

Table 6

 

 

6. Timing of Precambrian Melt Depletion

These rocks from Wyoming were dated ²⁶ in 2003 using the Rubidium/Strontium and Neodymium/Samarium method. The rock samples [Tables 7 & 8] gave ages ²⁷ between -2 and 50 billion years old! Since the Earth exists in the present how can rocks have formed in the future? How can a rock be 35 billion years older than the Big Bang explosion? The author admits some of the dates are negative: “That complete equilibrium was not achieved during this interaction is shown by the fact that the garnet–clinopyroxene tie lines for the different radiometric systems in the same sample do not provide ages that agree, and in the case of two of the Williams samples the Sm–Nd tie lines provide negative ages (Carlson et al., 1999a).”  ²⁸

 

Table 7

 

There is a 51,970 million year spread of dates between the youngest [Negative] and the oldest [Positive] ages.

 

Table 8

 

If we run the Lead 207/206 ratios ²⁹ through Isoplot we find that the rocks are 5 billion years old.

 

 

 

 

Table 9

 

The author claims that the true age is just 2.6 billion years old: “The mean TMA of these five samples is 2.86 Ga (or 3.07 Ga without the apparently younger sample HK1-24), and given the lower bound mean TRD age of 2.61 Ga, a depletion age in the late Archean seems likely.” ³⁰

 

7. Re-Os, Sm-Nd, and Rb-Sr Isotope Evidence

These rocks from Uganda were dated ³¹ in 1993 using the Rubidium/Strontium and Neodymium/Samarium methods. Since the Earth exists in the present how can rocks have formed in the future? How can a rock be 6 billion years older than the Earth? The author admits some of the dates are negative:

 

“If Re-Os model ages are calculated using the conventional model age approach, i.e., using the measured Re/Os and osmium isotope composition in comparison to some model for bulk-Earth osmium isotope evolution, several peridotites yield negative ages, or ages that are considerably older than the Earth (Table 5). This indicates that some peridotites cannot have evolved as closed systems.”

 

If we run the Osmium isotope ratios ³³ through Microsoft Excel we get the following results.

 

Table 10

187Os/186Os Ages

 

The rock samples below gave ages ³² between -1.5 and 11 billion years old!

 

Table 11

 

 

Table 12

 

There is a 14,300 million year spread of dates between the youngest [Negative] and the oldest [Positive] ages.

 

 

 

Conclusion

Yuri Amelin states in the journal Elements that radiometric dating is extremely accurate: “However, four 238U/235U-corrected CAI dates reported recently (Amelin et al. 2010; Connelly et al. 2012) show excellent agreement, with a total range for the ages of only 0.2 million years – from 4567.18 ± 0.50 Ma to 4567.38 ± 0.31 Ma.” ^34-36

 

To come within 0.2 million years out of 4567.18 million years means an accuracy of 99.99562%. Looking at some of the dating it is obvious that precision is much lacking. The Bible believer who accepts the creation account literally has no problem with such unreliable dating methods. Much of the data in radiometric dating is

selectively taken to suit and ignores data to the contrary.

 

 

References

 

1              http://web.archive.org/web/20051223072700/http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html

The age of 10 to 15 billion years for the age of the Universe.

 

2              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe

 

3              http://arxiv.org/pdf/1001.4744v1.pdf

Microwave Anisotropy Probe Observations, Page 39, By N. Jarosik

 

4              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

 

5              http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/190/1/205

The age of the Earth, G. Brent Dalrymple

Geological Society, London, Special Publications, January 1, 2001, Volume 190, Pages 205-221

 

6              The age of the earth, Gérard Manhes

Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 47, Issue 3, May 1980, Pages 370–382

 

7              http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0506458v1.pdf

The age of the Galactic disk, By E. F. del Peloso and L. da Silva

Astronomy & Astrophysics, Manuscript no. 3307, February 2, 2008

 

8              Ion Microprobe U-Pb Dating, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, Volume 117, 2002, Pages 285-296

 

9              http://www.bgc.org/isoplot_etc/isoplot.html

 

10           Principles of Isotope Geology, Second Edition, By Gunter Faure, Published By John Wiley And Sons, New York, 1986. Pages 120 [Rb/Sr], 205 [Nd/Sm], 252 [Lu/Hf], 266 [Re/OS], 269 [Os/OS].

 

11           Reference 8, page 288, 290

 

12           Reference 8, page 291

 

13           The Long Valley Rhyolitic, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 1998, Volume 62, Number 21/22,

Pages 3561-3574

 

14           Reference 13, page 3567

 

15           Reference 13, page 3569

 

16           Rn-Generated 206Pb, Mineralogy and Petrology, 1999, Volume 66, Pages 171-191

 

17           Reference 16, page 182, 183

 

18           Reference 16, page 171

 

19           Reference 16, page 176

 

20           40Ar/39Ar Age of a Tholeiitic Basalt, Quaternary Research, Volume 68, 2007, Pages 96-110

 

21           Reference 20, pages 101, 102

 

22           Reference 20, pages 103

 

23           Isotopic Systematics of Ultramafic Xenoliths, Chemical Geology, Volume 248, 2008, Pages 40-61

 

24           Reference 23, page 46

 

25           Reference 23, page 54

 

26           Timing of Precambrian Melt Depletion, Lithos, Volume 77, 2004, Pages 453-472

 

27           Reference 26, page 458, 460

 

28           Reference 26, page 466

 

29           Reference 26, page 459

 

30           Reference 26, page 463

 

31           Re-Os, Sm-Nd, and Rb-Sr Isotope Evidence, Geochemica et Cosmochimica Acta, 1995,

Volume 59, Number 5, Pages 959-977

 

32           Reference 31, pages 970, 971

               

33           Reference 31, pages 963

 

34           Dating the Oldest Rocks in the Solar System, Elements, 2013, Volume 9, Pages 39-44

 

35           Amelin, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2010, Volume 300, Pages 343-350

 

36           Connelly, Science, 2012, Volume 338, Pages 651-655

 

 

 

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