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Porvaznik: Age of the Oldest Earth Rocks

The Archean rocks (c. 2.5 to 4.0 billion years old) of Precambrian (c. 570 million years ago) earth history occur on all continents but over small and roughly equi-dimensional areas. Although subject to metamorphism and deformation long ago, these Archean cratons, also called blocks or shields, now constitute very stable parts of the present-day continents and except for the ravages of erosion, have undergone little internal change for hundreds of millions of years. A typical early Archean terrane can be subdivided into several broad categories of rock units, including gneisses, supracrustal sequences (greenstone belts), and intrusive rocks. Some 80 to 90 percent of Archean rocks are gneisses which occur as vast "seas" that surround the basement for both older and younger rocks.

 

North Atlantic

The North Atlantic Archean craton includes parts of eastern and western Greenland, part of the coast of Labrador in Canada, and small sections of northwestern Scotland and northern Norway. Once a single block, this Archean terrane was torn into sections when North and South America were separated from Europe and Africa nearly 200 million years ago to form the Atlantic Ocean. When rejoined (see diagram at right) the North Atlantic craton consists of a roughly triangular area with sides about 600 km in length. The rocks of the craton are primarily (85%) granitoid gneisses.

The area near Godthaab, the capital of Greenland, is dominated by gneiss complexes of two distinct ages. The older complex is called the Amitsoq gneisses. Because of their antiquity, the early Archean rocks near Godthaab and Isua (about 100 km northeast of Godthaab) have been the objects of a great many radiometric age measurements, the effort being led primarily by S. Moorbath of Oxford University, who with his colleagues has spent more than a decade studying these rocks. The radiometric age data confirm the sequence of rock units as determined by field relationships, and show that the Isua supracrustals and the Amitsoq gneisses are some of the oldest rocks found so far on earth (Dalrymple, page 128-142).

North America

The Superior Province of North America is the world's largest known Archean crustal block (area about 2.6 x 106 km2). Two areas where the oldest gneisses occur have been studied in some detail. These include an elongate exposure within the Minnesota River Valley near Morton and Granite Falls and a small area exposed near Watersmeet in northern Michigan. The Morton Gneiss (in Minnesota) is a complex rock consisting of multiple rock units that were formed at different times and are now interlayered on a fine scale.

Picture to the left is the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona, an impressive testimony to an ancient earth. The top layer of the Grand Canyon, the Kaibab Limestone, contains many marine fossils which indicate that it originated at the bottom of the sea. This layer is around 250 million years old. The Rocky Mountains begin to form 60-70 million years ago and at some point later the Colorado River is born. One popular theory is that around 20 million years ago the Colorado River begins to carve into the Grand Canyon at its eastern end, Marble Canyon, and probably exiting via Kanab Canyon. At 17 million years ago the Colorado Plateau begins to uplift and causes the river to cut deeper. Around 5 million years ago the uplift ceases and another river working its way northward along the San Andreas fault and eastward along the western Colorado Plateau captures the Colorado River. See also Young Earth Creationism and the Geology of the Grand Canyon by amateur geologist Jon Woolf.

R. Sungenis: From Hutton’s and Lyell’s work, it was assumed that the rate of erosion and sedimentation in past time was the same as it is today. Hence, the age of a stratum was calculated from current rates of sedimentation deposition. There was one problem for Hutton and Lyell, however. This calculation was hypothetical, since all the assumed stages of stratum were never found together in one geological formation. Nevertheless, the method used to date the rocks of the Cambrian period to the present time was based on the principle of superposition, that is, that lower stratum were older than higher stratum.

Concurrent with these theories were the studies of Johannes Walther. Walther studied sedimentary deposits that advanced from land toward the ocean. To acquire a test sample of the deposit, Walther drilled-out a top-to-bottom vertical cylinder midway in the advancement. He found that the various facie from the test sample were in the same order as the leading edge of the advancement into the ocean. He reasoned that the facie were being laid side-by-side. Walther did the same testing in the bay of Naples. He found that after drilling-out a vertical column of sediment it had the same sequence of facies arrangement as the sediments laying horizontally. He soon reasoned that the previous theory that facies on the top were forming later than the facies on the bottom was wrong. Instead, he found that the facies were being formed simultaneously and being deposited horizontally, not vertically.

This phenomenon was confirmed in the observance of coastal marine floods. In the 1970's and 1980's several holes bored in the bottom of the Pacific ocean produced samples which showed that Walther’s discovery also applied to deep sea sediments. Later, samples from the Grand Canyon showed the same phenomenon. In 1965, the American geologist Edwin McKee found the same horizontal sedimentation occurring as a result of a river in Colorado overflowing its banks from a torrential rain. The stratified deposits, which reached a thickness of twelve feet in forty-eight hours, showed particle sorting and bedding planes. Classical theory would have to interpret this sedimentatino as interruptions of sedimentation wherein one strata would have hardened before the next layer was placed on top of it, but this would be impossible within the space of forty-eight hours.

Taking McKee’s observations, French geologist Guy Berthault devised a laboratory experiment to observe how particles settled in both dry and wet conditions. In both cases, sand particles of differing size sorted themselves out into micro-strata according to their sizes with the larger ones forming at the bottom and the smaller ones at the top. This showed that micro-strata would form by particle sorting, irrespective of the speed of sedimentation. It was the exact opposite of the theory, believed for more than two centuries, that strata were formed by layers forming one on top of the other. The results of these experiments were registered with the French Academy of Sciences.

In cooperation Pierre Julian, Ph.D of the Colorado State University, larger scale experiments were performed to confirm the above results. Different sized particles of sand were poured into water circulating in a long flume. Under all kinds of varying conditions, it was found again that the mechanical nature of stratification was such that particle segregated according to their size when transported by water currents of variable speeds, and that sedimentation would form both horizontally and vertically. Repeated experiments by different groups gave the same results. It was found that various kinds of strata would form depending directly on the speed of the current. This would discount the idea that similar strata found in various parts of the world would be of the same age, rather, it would have been due simply to identical environmental conditions. Although it was understood that superposition would occur in still water, nevertheless, motionless water would not have been the case for hardly any area of the world. In fact, it could be said that classical stratiography failed to take into account any of the water currents in the worlds oceans, seas and rivers. Various water currents around the world would make stratification non-continuous, the opposite of present geological column theory.

Experiments were also performed on dry particulates. It was found that as various sizes of particles were vertically dropped on a target, stratifications were formed parallel to the slope, exceeding an angle of 30 degrees, again contradicted the prevailing idea in geology that strata is formed in horizontal layers. Hence, sloping strata could simply be the result of sediments forming on an inclined plane.

In respect of fossils, organisms would be swept along laterally (the same as the sediments of the above experiments) and would be deposited successively in sediments where they would become fossilized. As with sediments, the position of the fossil would provide no indication of age. In this case, fossils in higher strata could be older than fossils in lower strata.

We must also add that the above type of fossilization process accounts for the many fossils found in sediments, since the burial of the fossils occurred very quickly, before the organic specimen had a chance to decompose. Conversely, evolutionary theory has the impossible task of explaining how a fossil could be formed in strata that takes millions of years for it to cover the organic specimen. Surely the specimen would have completely decomposed, if not eaten by other specimens first, before it had a chance to be fossilized. Some evolutionists attempt to explain the anomaly by hypothesizing that highly alkaline water allowed the specimens to be preserved. But this is surely a desperate attempt at an answer, since it is well-known that highly alkaline solutions are corrosive.

In the 1994 publication, Grand Canyon, by geologist Stephen Austin, Ph.D., which referred to the work of sedimentologist D. M. Rubin on the relation between hydraulic conditions and stratified structures in San Francisco Bay, which was published in Sedimentary Geology; and to Jay Sufford in Sedimentary Patrology, which summarized a series of thirty-nine flume experiments on the same relations between hydraulics and stratification. Rubin summarized these relations diagramatically showing: (a) speed of current; (b) depth of water; and (c) size of sedimentary particles, which would have been necessary to form the different structures found in the sedimentary deposits. Austin discovered the same structures in the sedimentary rocks in the Grand Canyon as those in Rubin’s diagram. The 800 kilometer sample of the Grand Canyon, known as the Tonto Group, comprises three facies which extend east to west. The upper facie was made of limestone; the middle facie, clay; and the lower facie, sandstone. As predicted by Walther’s law, the same sequence of facies are found side-by-side as those found from top to bottom.

From this evidence, Austin determined the hydraulic conditions which would have existed when the Tonto group of the Grand Canyon was deposited in order to make the specific sequence of stratification. The condition was a velocity of water current in the sample of two meters per second, causing the water to rise nearly 2,000 meters above current ocean level, and which would have been accomplished in as little as two days. Not surprisingly, the speed of current needed to build the Tonto group corresponded precisely with those recorded in the thirty-nine flume experiments performed by Sufford. The advancing water current travels at differing velocities. Heavier or coarser particles would deposit before lighter particles in a fast-moving current. A rapid speed of current would have occurred as the water level was rising. As the water level became higher, the speed of the current decreased, and at that point the sediments deposited would have been proportionately finer, yet all of the particles would have been deposited at or near the same time, resulting in the sandstone-clay-limestone sequence. During the point at which the ocean arrived at its maximum level there would have been little or no current. The finest particles would deposit at a rate of about 2 centimeters per day and shows that superposition does, indeed, occur. But this process would be interrupted when, as the waters began to subside, the current reappeared. In addition, when the water began to recede, it would have created velocities sufficient to erode deep valleys into the lightly-packed sediments deposited during the initial stratification.

Evolutionists believe that the Tonto Group of the Grand Canyon occurred during the Cambrian period, since it contains many fossils associated with the “Cambrian explosion.” The Cambrian period is said to have lasted 70 million years. Obviously, if the above data from Austin and Berthault is correct, it would categorically deny such a long time period to the Tonto Group. In fact, the experiments show that the Tonto group would have been formed in as little as days or weeks. Since the assumptions of stratification used by evolutionists had never been verified experimentally, just assumed, then there remains little objection they can raise. As a result, the whole of their geologic column, including the multi-millions of years separating the Cambrian from such periods as the Jurassic or Pleistocene, will have to be discarded until they can provide experimental results to the contrary. [The information contained herein was taken from the material published by the Geological Society of France, 1993, and Julien Lan and Guy Berthault, “Experiments on stratification of heterogeneous sand mixtures,” CEN Technical Journal 8 (1):3750, 1994; Guy Berthault, “Experiments on lamination of sediments,” CEN Technical Journal 3:2529, 1988]

There are two kinds of radiometric dating: organic and inorganic. Organic dating involves the measurement of Carbon 14, an isotope of Carbon 12 that is unstable. Carbon 14 has two extra electrons in orbit that cannot be held for long by the Carbon nucleus. Thus, the two electrons eventually escape, leaving the stable element of Carbon 12 we use regularly on earth. The rate that these two electrons escape can be measured, and then matched against the known decay rate of Carbon 14, since it is assumed that the decay rate never changes. Carbon 14 exists in all living matter. During its life, the living specimen absorbs and expels Carbon, a small amount of which is Carbon 14. After the specimen dies, the Carbon 14 begins its uninterrupted decay. It dissipates into the environment. Current science has calculated that it takes 5,760 years for half of the original amount of Carbon 14 in the organic specimen to decay into the stable form, Carbon 12. This is know as the half-life. Thus, by measuring how much Carbon 14 has decayed an indication can be obtained of how long ago the organism was alive. This is easy to do for recently deceased or specially preserved specimens, but since fossils are organic specimens that have since turned into stone, they do not contain any Carbon, and therefore they cannot be dated using the Carbon 14 method.

Almost all known fossils are found in sedimentary rocks. These rocks contain radioactive elements which also decay from isotopes to non-isotopes, the same as Carbon 14 decays to Carbon 12. For example, the isotope of Potassium decays into Argon, Uranium decays into Lead, etc). Hence, when an evolutionists claims that a particular fossil is so many millions of years old, he is not saying that the specimen itself is that old, but only the rock within and surrounding the fossil. The specimen is assumed to be the same age as the rock surrounding it.

The other method of dating rock encrusted fossils is to estimate when the horizontal layer of sediment was formed in which the fossil is found, but this is all based on the unproven theory that deeper horizontal layers are older than higher ones. Several scientist have shown evidence in recent years that this theory is in fact wrong.

Porvaznik: Australia

The western part of the Australian continent consists of two Archean cratons surrounded largely by Proterozoic mobile belts. The Archean rocks of the Pilbara Block are exposed over an area of about 56,000 km2, but nearly half of the craton is covered on the south by Proterozoic sedimentary rocks, so its total area may exceed 100,000 km2. The formations that compose the Archean greenstones of the Pilbara Block are collectively called the Pilbara Supergroup.

Perhaps the best preserved and most complete greenstone succession known is the Barberton greenstone belt. This remarkable sequence of Archean volcanic and sedimentary rocks is exposed in the Barberton Mountain Land in northern Swaziland and the southeastern part of the Transvaal Province of South Africa (Dalrymple, page 154-174).

The oldest, reliably dated, in-situ granitoid rocks of magmatic origin (orthogneisses), regarded as broadly representative of the type of continental crust formed throughout the rest of earth history, mostly give ages in the range 3.65 to 3.75 billions of years old (Ga), and probably up to 3.81 Ga. The oldest reliable dates, from in-situ chemical and detrital sedimentary and volcanic rocks (i.e. supracrustal rocks), give ages in the range 3.71 to 3.81 Ga (from "The Oldest Rocks on Earth" by B.S. Kamber, S. Moorbath, M.J. Whitehouse in The Age of the Earth from 4004 BC to AD 2002, edited by C.L.E. Lewis and S.J. Knell [Geological Society, 2001], page 197, 198).

Learn about the types of minerals here -- including Zircon (ZrSiO4, Zirconium Silicate), Ilmenite (FeTiO3, Iron Titanium Oxide), Pyroxene, Plagioclase (a form of Feldspar, NaAlSi3O8 abundant on the Moon), and many others.

Radiometric Ages of Some Early Archean/Related Rocks

[ From G. Brent Dalrymple (page 140-1, 159, 169, 180-1), some omitted for brevity ]

Unit and Locality Method Number of Samples Age (billions of years)

R. Sungenis: In his very technical book, The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods (1999), John Woodmorappe investigated 494 geological dating tests written in various journals. Within those tests he found an assortment of fallacious claims and reasonings, everything from scientists who allowed only themselves to check their work, to data manipulation, to the absence of standard reliability criteria and norms, to basing conclusions on premises without proof. He found that geologists have invented a whole new vocabulary to describe the anomalies they find, such as delayed-uplift ages, rejuvenated dates, inherited isochrons, etc., of which all are for one purpose – to hide the real facts from the public. You can imagine the pressure on these scientists, whose very jobs depend on them finding the “right” data. If one of these scientist ever presented data which showed that the earth was 10,000 of less years old, he would not be employed for long. There are plenty of other scientists churned from the mill of bastions of modern science who would gladly conform the evidence to fit evolutionary theory. In short, scientists have put themselves within a vicious cycle

Directly related to the anomalies of radiometric dating is the case of Polonium halos. Dr. Robert Gentry, who tested over one hundred thousand samples of granite from a variety of places on the earth, found that each contained micaurbiatite, which in turn contained rings of Polonium. The Polonium isotopes consisted of Polonium 210, Polonium 214, and Polonium 218. The oddity is that the halos, due to the decay rate of these Polonium isotopes, last but a very short time. The half-life of P210 is 22 days; P218's half-life is 3 minutes; P214's is .000164 micro seconds. This means that unless the granite was created instantaneously, it would not be possible for the Polonium isotopes to be captured so as to appear as a viable specimen of radioactivity many years later.

Some evolutionary scientists attempt to explain this by hypothesizing that the halos were not produced by an initial concentration of the radioactive element. Instead, if water seeped through cracks in the minerals, it would have caused a chemical change such that newly-formed Polonium would drop out of solution at a certain place and almost immediately decay. In the process, a halo would build up over a long period of time. The problem with this hypothesis is that it assumes the Polonium would not decay in the water before it dropped “out of solution.” Considering that Polonium 214 half-life is .000164 micro seconds, this hardly gives any time for the hypothesized process to occur.

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