Carbon dating and solar flares
Image by NASA
“..Earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.”
For the last half century many scientists trusted carbon-dating…
However, recent studies show carbon-dating isn’t as reliable as once thought.
It’s rate of decay changes with solar flares. This means studies saying humans have been around over 10,000 years, may be inaccurate. In much of the Christian world, it’s understood humans have been around the Earth for only about 6,000 years, because of Biblical geneaology and modern revelation.
Here’s a little more info about carbon-dating:
Radio carbon dating developed in 1949 and was used to measure age of carbon-containing things up to about 58,000 to 62,000 yrs. The dating was based on the assumption that Carbon-14 found in organic material decays at a constant rate- decreasing in half every 5,730 yrs.
By comparing the fraction of C14 in organic material to the expected fraction of C14 in the atmosphere, the date was approximated. This method proved successful when University of Chicago scientists accurately estimated the age of wood from an ancient egyptian ship (the age was verified through writings).
Most of the production of C14 occurs in the atmosphere 9-15 km high as cosmic rays react with nitrogen. In 1958 Hessel de Vries showed how C14 levels in the atmosphere differ according to time and place. For example during U.S. nuclear testing (1960s), the C14 levels in the atmosphere about doubled. Also with global warming melting more ice, more carbon’s emitted into the atmosphere.
Though once thought constant, people at Purdue University say carbon dating fluctuates with solar flares.
“Every Latter-day Saint may merit personal revelation. The invitation to ask, seek, and knock for divine direction exists because God lives and Jesus is the living Christ.”
- Elder Russell M. Nelson
My Testament: Though it’s interesting to know physical evidences in support of the Gospel, true, lasting testimony comes through the Holy Spirit. The Lord can teach us things our physical senses cannot. Though I may not know everything, I know God lives and guides His Church upon the earth.
In the early to mid 1990′s I was shown a National Geographic documentary on the Biblical flood. In this documentary they gave their theories about how that could have happened. The reason I remember this so well is also the reason I post this here. In that documentary one scientist came on and told the audience that there was a point in time in history beyond which all dating methods they had could be off by as much as millions of years. And that point in history corresponded with the approximate time of when Noah’s flood would have happened.
That’s really interesting, I’d like to watch more historical documentaries to learn about those kinds of things.
The rate of decay in carbon-14 does not change as a result of solar flares. What changes is ratio of nitrogen-14 to carbon-14 in the atmosphere. Carbon-14 is “made” in the atmosphere when cosmic rays collide with nitrogen-14 atoms, converting them to carbon-14 which is an unstable isotope of carbon. Let me reiterate, the decay rate of carbon-14 is constant, and not affected by solar flares whatsoever. Solar flares bombard the atmosphere with cosmic rays and increase the rate at which notrogen-14 atoms are converted to carbon-14 atoms. This could potentially cause a problem for carbon-14 dating except that scientists have been aware of this issue, and many others for a long time, and account for environmental changes that might affect carbon-14 ratios by calibrating their data against other reliable “clocks” like dendrochronology (tree ring dating) which is accurate to the year and has an unbroken chain going back 11,000 years. Bear in mind also, that carbon-14 dating, along with all other forms of radiometric dating, are accurate within about a 1% margin of error. So for dating to be off by millions of years the object would have to be hundreds of millions of years old.
Thanks for sharing that information! That’s fascinating how carbon dating works and how accurate tree ring dating can be. I respect your opinion about carbon dating being constant. I honestly don’t know how accurate carbon dating is- I do think however, that science is continually progressing and finding out new things. I think many of the things we believe are true scientifically, may indeed be somewhat inaccurate. Man knows so little, God knows everything. Some day we’ll know for sure.