T or E

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gregg</i>
<br />I have no problem with Carbon-14 dating. They admit it has a limited accuracy over a limited duration of time. And we have an understanding of the mechanism which generates Carbon-14.

I have a considerable problem with isotopes that are assumed to have existed, from time "zero", in a stable, never changing, environment over 100s of millions or billions of years.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Ok, now I get the distinction you're making, and the "cause celebre".

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gregg</i>

I have no problem with Carbon-14 dating. They admit it has a limited accuracy over a limited duration of time. And we have an understanding of the mechanism which generates Carbon-14.

I have a considerable problem with isotopes that are assumed to have existed, from time "zero", in a stable, never changing, environment over 100s of millions or billions of years.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Although the question of dating through the use of radioisotope half lives may seem tangential to the subject of this post, actually it is not. As Gregg points out, the 65myr EPH date seems to depend on it.

According to my little pocket reference, the half life of C14 is 5730 years, and as I understand it the process begins right after a combustion event such as a campfire. This method was usfull for dating fossils when C14 was found in the same strata as the fossils. The reason it wasn't much good after 40kyr is by that time most of this isotope is depleted and measurement of trace amounts becomes increasingly difficult.

On the other hand K40, (potassium-40), shows a half life of 1.26 billion years. One wonders how that number is arrived at and whether it might be different, even drastically different, under different conditions, temperatures, etc, as Gregg suggests.

That was why I asked if there was more information on this subject, even his own description of what is involved in some kind of research paper. A brief message board description is not enough even though it is interesting.

Neil

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by me</i>
On the other hand K40, (potassium-40), shows a half life of 1.26 billion years<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

The Yucatan crater in Mexico is the famous event linked to the K/T boundary believed to have caused the extinction of the dinasaurs. I thought readers might be interested in a snippet of the thinking that went into that theory. The following is quoted from a paper by R. Monasterski:

"In the August 14, 1992, SCIENCE, geochronologist Carl C. Swisher III of the Institute of Human Origins in Berkeley Calif., and his colleagues report that rocks from inside the Chicxulub circle formed exactly 65 million years ago and are the same age as impact debris found around the Carib-bean/Gulf of Mexico region. To date the rocks, Swisher's group used a radiometric technique that relies on the radioactive decay of potassium-40 to argon-40 over millions of years."
meteorite.org/chicx1.htm

In <i>Dark Matter</i>.. Dr. VF points out that several other crater events on Earth are also associated with this boundry. In chapters 23 and 24 he describes how that boundary might be associated with the hypothetical explosion of Planet V, an estimated 8 Earth mass planet that once may have occupied the present orbit of Mars.

It would be interesting to look for evidence of the aproximate date of construction of the possible artifacts we have been looking at, and whether they are best associated with the most recent hypothesized explosion of 3.2 mya, or the explosion associated with the K/T boundry. It would also be very usefull to know if the 65 myr date is really reliable. As Rich said, I am a natural sceptic.
Neil

It would be interesting to look for evidence of the aproximate date of construction of the possible artifacts we have been looking at, and whether they are best associated with the most recent hypothesized explosion of 3.2 mya, or the explosion associated with the K/T boundry. It would also be very usefull to know if the 65 myr date is really reliable. As Rich said, I am a natural sceptic.
Neil


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Let's begin with the mainstream theory on the creation of our solar system. I believe it is assumed that all stable isotopes and radioactive isotopes existed just prior to the "condensation" of our solar system. Implicitly, they were created by a previous star which supernovaed. Therefore, our Sun did not create this matter. If a supernovae created the matter, then we have a reasonably tight time "zero" for the creation of all the isotopes. If it is claimed that any matter in our system, outside of our Sun, is being created by our Sun, then when is that time "zero"? It gets a bit diffuse, to put it mildly.

Anyway, if a supernovae created our matter, how did it "know" to create only "mother" radioactive isotopes and not the "daughter" stable isotopes. Yet this is what is assumed by the radiometric dating theory. One compares the current ratio of "mother" radioactive isotopes to their stable "daughter" isotopes. One then uses the radioactive decay rate of the "mother" radioactive isotope to compute back to time "zero" when no "daughter" stable isotope existed.

Let's say that the asteroid impact at the KT boundary somehow created the initial concentrations of the radioactive and stable isotopes. The above problem simply repeats.

This whole process of radiometric dating is based on silly and unproven assumptions.

One could examine these things and reasonably "prove" that these incidents happened at the same time, but one cannot establish an absolute date.

Of course, if our Sun is creating isotopes heavier than hydrogen, as claimed by mainstream nuclear fusion theory, then the current radiometric dating method becomes even sillier.

Gregg Wilson

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gregg</i>
<br />Anyway, if a supernovae created our matter, how did it "know" to create only "mother" radioactive isotopes and not the "daughter" stable isotopes. Yet this is what is assumed by the radiometric dating theory. One compares the current ratio of "mother" radioactive isotopes to their stable "daughter" isotopes. One then uses the radioactive decay rate of the "mother" radioactive isotope to compute back to time "zero" when no "daughter" stable isotope existed.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">This particular objection does not apply if the material being dated could only have contained the "mother" nuclide when it formed. In that case the origins of the "mother" nuclide and its abundance relative to the "daughter" nuclides at the time of the formation of the sample would be irrelevent.

JR

I hope that it will be ok to interject and do some "multitasking" here because I too would like to see how the current train of thought (re: dating and the EPH) develops.

Some further information Rich and I have regarding a possible artificial structure in this area prompts me to return to the original subject of this thread, namely the question of whether the T or E feature is at least partially artificial. As I have said previously in another thread, I suspect that the creators of the various artifacts we have been looking at often seem to take some naturally occuring feature and modify it it in some way which retains the general shape, style, or "theme" if you will, of the original natural feature. I think that has happened here in the plane SE of Olympus Mons.

Before I go into any more detail on what I mean, I want to post a low resolution MOLA map of this sector. As you can see, the area around 129W, 16N where the T or E is located, and indeed much of the surrounding area, is "yellow," which indicates the global mean altitude for Mars. But relative to the Tharsis Bulge, as you can see on the MOLA global topograpy map below that, the yellow area to the east of OM constitites something of a depression. Incidentally, for the record, these images resolve three basic questions here; where the feature is on Mars (of course it can't be seen but you have the co-ordinates), its relative altitude, its orientation re: north and south.





Neil