Carbon 14 In All Coal and Diamonds Proves Young Earth

Article by William Nugent

Eight PhD scientists recently released their findings on the radioisotope evidence for the age of the earth. They had been known as the RATE group (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth). They spent eight years on the project. They studied many radioisotopic dating strategies such as carbon 14.You may remember the carbon 14 dating strategy from your high school biology class. Carbon 14 is useful only in dating samples containing carbon which normally indicates plant and animal matter (although diamonds also contain carbon).

Carbon 14 has a half life of only 5,730 years. This means an object 5,730 years old ought to have only half the quantity of carbon 14 in ratio to carbon 12 as a new object.Any object that is older than twenty carbon 14 half lives really should not have any detectable carbon 14. In other words, considering that carbon 14′s half life is five,730 years, twenty half lives would be 114,600 years and there should be no detectable carbon 14 in a sample that old.The RATE group tested ten samples of coal which it obtained from the US Department of Energy Coal Sample Bank. The ten samples had been of coal taken from coalfields all across the United States. The samples represented a wide range of regular time frames in the geologic column such as the Cenozoic, Mesozoic and Paleozoic.

The coal samples had been considered to be tens to hundreds of millions of years old by standard old earth standards. However, in direct contradiction to the standard old earth timeframe, all ten samples of coal had significant levels of detectable carbon 14.The truth that carbon 14 was detected in each sample of coal clearly shows that the regular old earth estimates for the age of coal are wrong by many orders of magnitude.

Old earth evolutionists assume that coal deposits and their accompanying fossils are a lot of millions of years old since evolutionary processes call for millions of years. Their presupposition of evolution distorts their capacity to objectively date coal. A scientist is supposed to be objective and go to wherever the facts take him or her.Carbon 14 dating, which is a extremely accredited radioisotopic dating technique, shows that the coal samples could not be older than 114,600 years. The objective scientific facts point to young earth.

To be fair, I will point out that the age of any object can not be nailed down with absolute certainty due to the fact geologic dating is forensic science and deals with nonrepeatable events that occurred in the distant past.Forensic science is the kind of science utilised by a police detective to reconstruct the timing of past events that occurred at a crime scene. Experimental science, by contrast, deals with repeatable events such as what occurs with chemicals in a test tube. Forensic science, because it deals with the past, is far more subjective and open to interpretation.The ten coal samples had carbon 14 levels consistent with an age estimate of approximately 50,000 years. That 50,000 year age estimate is fairly older than the biblical time frame of approximately 6,000 years. The Bible, via its listing of the ages of the patriarchs in the genealogies, gives an approximate 6,000 year age of the earth since the creation.The discrepancy is resolved when we take into account that the implied 50,000 year age of the coal is based on the assumption that the carbon 14 to carbon 12 ratio in the earth’s environment was the exact same when the coal was formed as it is today.

Scientists at Answers In Genesis and The Institute for Creation Investigation who study the earth’s magnetic field maintain that the earth’s magnetic field was many times stronger in ancient times than it is right now and as a result carbon 14 was formed in the upper atmosphere at a a lot slower rate. As a result there was significantly less carbon 14 accessible in the ancient earth than there is now and this accounts for the low amount in the coal. This implies that the coal samples’ actual age can reasonably be inferred to be inside the biblical timeframe of 6,000 years.To put it an additional way, the implied 50,000 year age of the coal blows away the old earth timeframe but even the implied 50,000 year age is likely significantly higher than the actual age of the coal. We can confidently say that the actual age is much younger than 50,000 years because carbon 14 levels had been extremely low throughout the time of coal formation in the early earth.The RATE group also tested twelve samples of diamonds and discovered detectable levels of carbon 14. This is particularly considerable simply because diamonds are not prone to any type of potential contamination due to the fact of their extreme hardness. Old earth evolutionists claim that diamonds are up to 3.five billion years old. The presence of carbon 14 in diamonds clearly shows the absurdity of that claim.Other groups of scientists have found detectable levels of carbon 14 in dinosaur bones. I have read that scientists, even old earth evolutionist scientists, cannot find any fossil or coal that does not have carbon 14!The RATE group was composed of scientists who believe in creation. Their work however, merely confirmed the work of noncreationist scientists who have measured carbon 14 in coal and diamonds considering that Accelerator Mass Spectrometry was employed to measure carbon 14 beginning in the early 1980s.

As you can imagine, the discovery of carbon 14 in coal beginning in the 1980s sent shockwaves by way of the radiocarbon community. Dozens of papers had been published in peer reviewed journals dealing with this embarrassing development. Painstaking efforts had been created to eradicate any sample contamination or equipment malfunction but carbon 14 kept showing up in coal and fossils!1 of the RATE scientists, John Baumgardner PhD, has cited numerous noncreationist scientific writings on carbon 14 in coal and diamonds. One of these is a 2007 paper by Taylor and Southon discussing the detection of carbon 14 in diamonds. Baumgardner also effectively rebutted a internet posting by Kirk Bertsche that criticized the work of the RATE group.Creationists claim that coal was formed rapidly during Noah’s flood when “all the fountains of the excellent deep burst open” (Gen. 7:11 NASB.) This Bible passage refers to massive volcanism and tectonic shifts that occurred throughout the flood.

Massive land masses containing dense vegetation had been subducted (buried) throughout the movements of the earth’s plates. This resulted in vast stores of vegetation becoming buried deep beneath the earth’s surface where temperature and pressure caused it to alter into coal and oil. Some oil deposits are far more than five miles below the earth’s surface.Coal formation had to happen rapidly since slow accumulation of plant matter enables the plant matter to rot just before it can be turned into coal. Plant matter in today’s Amazon basin rots far more rapidly than plant matter in far more temperate climates.Carbon 14 in coal and diamonds gives persuasive evidence favoring a young age of planet earth. Carbon 14, like the recent finds of blood remnants in dinosaur bones and other natural clocks showing a young age of earth are persuading an ever growing number of scientists.

It used to be that creationists had been like a hidden guerrilla band amongst PhD scientists. Now with the rapidly growing Intelligent Style Movement a standard army of evolution denying scientists has emerged.Creation of this planet occurred inside the biblical timeframe. Young age of earth clearly disproves Darwinian evolution.My source for significantly of the material in this post is from “The New Answers Book” edited by Ken Ham.

About the Author

Bill Nugent has written several articles on Christianity, philosophy and science. He has also written books that give Bible based teaching on sanctification and that caution against the error of legalism. His books are obtainable at his web site www.gracelawandsonship.com.