Re: Ages of Things

Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@xxxxxxxxxx> eyed the audience and in
choked emotion intoned:
news:a3f7be04-0c8e-496a-9e54-c5578ce17d7a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

On Mar 26, 2:44 am, "Martin Hutton" <mdhutton1...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:00:26 -0400, Mark Isaak <eci...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  wrote:

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:17:46 -0400, Martin Hutton wrote:

[snip references to things like:]
1. J. R. Baumgardner, D. R. Humphreys, A. A. Snelling, and S. A.
Austin, "Measurable 14C in fossilized organic materials:
Confirming the young earth creation/Flood model," in Proceedings
of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, R. E.
Walsh, Editor, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, 2003.

Perhaps he is not aware of research that shows fossilised
carbon reaches a C14-C12 equilibrium whose value depends
on the radioactive characteristics of the surrounding matrix.

That's plausible assuming the "surrounding matrix" contains either U or Th.


I am not familiar with that research myself.  Do you have
citations?

I am not familiar with any 14C-12C studies either, I would be interested in
any reference. See below for possible references to 13C-12C studies that
may be relevant.


Not readily available.

But I recall the main article was to do with the collection of
vast amounts of minimally radioactive carbon (< 10^-20 14C/C?
is ringing bells) for a neutrino detector. They found the best
predictor for great ages was a small amount of radioactivity
in the surrounding matrix.

Maybe I got the original leads from an article in T.O. - it was
a long time ago and I remember finding some nifty RC sites and
papers.

I think it came up in discussion of nonzero carbon-14 reportedly
measured in diamonds, which IIRC are all >= 3 billion years old. Or
something. One interpretation of that that doesn't depend on the
earth really being only 6,010 years old (or on creationist researchers
cheating) is that background radiation from the material around the
diamond converts some of its atoms to carbon-14 for a while, until
they decay.

That's correct, I think someone referred to a poster session claiming to
have measured detectable amounts of 14 C in diamonds. Most diamond contains
trace amounts of N. Thermal neutron capture by 13N --> 14C. Sources of
thermal neutrons are spontaneous fission of U and Th. Both are relatively
abundant in kimberlitic magmas as they are derived from the mantle. So it
is a plausible explanation of an implausible measurement.

Naturally occurring diamond suites fall into two main age brackets, > 3 by
and ~ 1,200 my but such studies have been limited mainly to S. African
sources (also some Russian and some Australian). These age determinations
have been based on Sm-Nd and Ar/Ar ages of inclusions (usually
clinopyroxenes) syngenetic with the diamond itself. I had an obscure
reference to a direct carbon isotope dating by a Japanese lab of Carbonado,
a form of diamond now thought to be of extrasolar origin which gave an age
greater than any terrestrial diamond ages (but not older than the solar
system). I also vaguely recall finding references to another isotopic
technique for directly dating diamonds developed by Chuck Naser at the
Geophysical Lab of the Carnegie Institute in Washington. I corresponded
with him about trying it on a suite of diamonds from a discovery we had
made in Brasil but we were never able to pursue it because of lack of
funding. That was about 15 years ago. </rant>

Getting back to the isotope issue, the Naser work would have been in the
yearbook sometime in the 1970s and I think the carbonado reference was in
Science and the first author was named Ozima, but I could be wrong. A
search on [Ozima carbonado] in google scholar turns up 59 references.

Cheers,

--
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n.

.

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