This was undoubtedly a factor in Dr. By Dr. Even IF 1 Austin's summation of Heliker is absolutely accurate and no gabbro xenoliths or xenoliths of any other lithologies were present in the dacite, 2 Austin succeeded in removing all of the 'lithic inclusions' from his samples as Swenson claims, 3 no microscopic xenocrysts were hiding in this messy dacite, and 4 hypothesis 2 was not a factor, Austin would still need to specify the lifespan of the 'recent magmatic system. The volcano and rockslide produced waves up to feet high in Spirit Lake. Because Austin admits that his separations were impure, how can he, Swenson and other YECs justify their claims that these dacite samples were a fair test of the validity of the K-Ar method? On the basis of the glass and mineral textures and elementary melt chemistry, we know that the zoned plagioclases and other relatively large and well-developed minerals in Austin's dacite must have taken more time to grow than the surrounding glass matrix. The microscopic examination of the 'heavy-magnetic concentrate' also revealed a trace quantity of iron fragments, obviously the magnetic contaminant unavoidably introduced from the milling of the dacite in the iron mortar.
Science Explorer. Multimedia Gallery. Park Passes. Technical Announcements. Employees in the News. Emergency Management. Survey Manual. Volcanic gases react with the atmosphere in various ways; the conversion of sulfur dioxide SO2 to sulfuric acid H2SO4has the most significant impact on climate. Volcanoes can impact climate change. Injected ash falls rapidly from the stratosphere -- most of it is removed within several days to weeks -- and has little impact on climate change. But volcanic gases like sulfur dioxide can cause global cooling, while volcanic carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, has the potential to promote global warming. The most significant climate impacts from volcanic injections into the stratosphere come from the conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfuric acid, which condenses rapidly in the stratosphere to form fine sulfate aerosols. The aerosols increase the reflection of radiation from the Sun back into space, cooling the Earth's lower atmosphere or troposphere. Several eruptions during the past century have caused a decline in the average temperature at the Earth's surface of up to half a degree Fahrenheit scale for periods of one to three years. The climactic eruption of Mount Pinatubo on June 15, , was one of the largest eruptions of the twentieth century and injected a million ton metric scale sulfur dioxide cloud into the stratosphere at an altitude of more than 20 miles.
Young-Earth Creationist 'Dating' of a Mt. Kevin R. Henke, Ph. Because radiometric dating utterly refutes their biblical interpretations, young-Earth creationists YECs are desperate to undermine the reality of these methods.
As part of their efforts, YEC Dr. Austin et al. Austin's conclusions on this project are summarized at the ICR website. The 'research' efforts of Austin and his colleagues and their 'expertise' in radiometric dating have been widely criticized, including by Joe Meert also hereKaren Bartelt and snapchat dating rules and myself at No Answers in Genesis and in my web debate with Dr.
Austin rarely responds to his critics. Helens Really a Million Years Old? Although Swenson accompanied Austin on a trip to Mt. Helens, there is no indication from his writings that Swenson is familiar with igneous petrology, geochronology or even geology in general. Considering that the half-life of potassium 40K is fairly long 1, million years, McDougall and Harrison,p. A few thousand years are not enough time europe dating most in famous app 40Ar to accumulate in a sample at high enough concentrations to be detected and quantified.
Furthermore, many geochronology laboratories do not have the expensive state-of-the-art equipment to accurately measure argon in samples that are only a few million years old. Specifically, the laboratory personnel that performed the K-Ar dating for Austin et al. With less advanced equipment, 'memory effects' can be a problem with very young samples Dalrymple,p. That is, very tiny amounts of argon contaminants from previous analyses may remain within the equipment, which precludes accurate dates for very young samples.
For older samples, which contain more 40Ar, the contamination is diluted and has insignificant effects. Considering the statements at the Geochron website and the lowest age limitations of the K-Ar method, why did Austin submit a recently erupted dacite to this carbon dating mount saint helens and expect a reliable answer??? Contrary to Swenson's uninformed claim that ' Dr Austin carefully designed the research to counter all possible objections', Austin clearly demonstrated his inexperience in geochronology when he wasted a lot of money using the K-Ar method on the wrong type of samples.
Austin's results on the Mt. Helens dacite, which are also listed by Swensonare shown in the following table:. Notice that only one of Austin's dates is above the lower dating limit of approximately 2 million years established by Geochron Laboratories. However, rather than dealing with this issue and critically evaluating Austin's other procedures including the unacceptable mineral and glass impurities in his 'fractions'YECs loudly proclaim that the results are discrepant with the AD eruption.
They then proceed to assault the validity of the K-Ar method. Considering that the dacite probably erupted in AD, Austin should have known that at least some of the samples would have given dates that were younger than 2 million years old and that Geochron Laboratories could not have provided reliable answers.
Therefore, it's not surprising that some of Austin's dates, such as the result for the amphiboles, etc. Without properly referencing Bartelt et al. This is the old YEC 'only eyewitnesses can provide accurate histories' scam. Obviously, Swenson, like many YECs, fails to realize that scientists can successfully unravel past events without witnessing them. Forensic scientists frequently send criminals to prison without eyewitness testimony. To be exact, the recent hideous actions of the Washington DC area USA sniper s illustrate how unreliable eyewitnesses can be and how important forensic science is in solving crimes and stopping killers.
In contrast to Austin et al. As mentioned above, we already know that Austin's application of the K-Ar method to this dacite sample was flawed from the beginning. Nevertheless, what are some possible causes of Austin's old dates?
Of course, some YECs might argue that God, for whatever reason, simply zapped some 40Ar into the various minerals during the 'Creation Week' about 6, years ago. Obviously, this suggestion has absolutely no scientific support or merit. Such ideas are flights of fantasy and not scientific hypotheses. Carbon dating mount saint helens even Austin endorses these untestable claims in his essay. Other YECs might argue that some of the minerals in the dacite began to grow sometime over the past 6, years.
However, without resorting to unproven miracles to speed up the decay rate of 40K, YECs still have the problem of explaining how all of that 40Ar could form in only 6, years. Using science, there are at least three hypotheses that may be purposed to explain why Austin obtained 'dates' ofto 2.
Any or all of these hypotheses are possible. Austin strongly argues that steps were taken in his laboratory to protect the samples from contamination and that xenoliths foreign rockshypothesis 3 carbon dating mount saint helens removed from the samples before analysis. He also claims that microscopes were used to scan for 'foreign particles' xenocrysts? Of course, he and his assistants may have missed many of the xenocrysts if they were small.
Austin clearly ignores the possibility of contamination in the mass spectrometer hypothesis 2 and the possibility that the phenocrysts in his samples may be much older than the AD eruption hypothesis 3. Austin simply assumes that the first explanation is correct and then he proceeds to use the 'presence' of 'excess argon' in his samples to question the reliability of all K-Ar dates on other rocks and minerals. This is the logical fallacy of composition Copi and Cohen, The validity of either hypothesis 2 or 3 would provide additional evidence that Austin's application of the K-Ar method is flawed and that he has failed to prove that the K-Ar method is universally invalid.
Figure 4 in Austin's essay shows a thin section photograph of long distance dating rules portion of the dacite.
In the caption of Figure 4, Austin identifies the grains in the photograph as phenocrysts and microphenocrysts, which is probably generally correct. Phenocrysts and microscopic phenocrysts microphenocrysts are crystals that grow in a melt magma deep within the Earth. In some cases, the entire melt solidifies before reaching the Earth's surface and an intrusive igneous rock develops Hyndman,p. Because intrusive rocks solidify deep within the Earth away from cool water and air, volcanic glass is absent and the grains may be fairly large that is, easily reaching lengths of one centimeter or more.
In other cases, such as Austin's dacite, a partially crystallized melt erupts on the Earth's surface and produces a volcanic rock, which may be a mixture of rapidly quenched volcanic glass and coarser phenocrysts Hyndman,p. Although Austin and Swenson will not admit it, some of the grains in Figure 4 may be xenocrysts rather than phenocrysts. In some cases, the magma may not be hot enough to melt or entirely dissolve the xenocrysts and they may survive after the melt cools.
For even the best mineralogists and petrologists, xenocrysts may be difficult to distinguish from phenocrysts for example, Hyndman,p. As clearly shown in Figure 4 of Austin's essaymany of the mineral grains are zoned. The zoning appears as a series of concentric rings of various shades of gray within the grains see the two obvious carbon dating mount saint helens in the middle of Figure 4.
Zoned crystals also may show Carlsbad twinning, which is typical of feldspars Here and Henke,Plate 10; Klein and Hurlbut,p.
In thin section and under crossed-polarized light, Carlsbad twinning has a 'half and half' appearance, where one half of the grain is darker than the other half Perkins and Henke,Plate As the sample is rotated on a microscope stage, one twin will darken as the other lightens in crossed-polarized light. A large grain with very noticeable Carlsbad twinning is located at the top of Figure 4. Well-established laboratory studies Klein and Hurlbut,p.
That is, as the magma cools, calcium-rich plagioclases crystallize dating advice adults christian young, which causes the remaining melt to become depleted in calcium and relatively enriched in sodium. Once temperatures further decline, more sodium-rich plagioclase begins to solidify from the melt speed dating russian may surround the calcium-rich grains.
This process produces zoning, where the older and more calcium-rich plagioclases are located in the core of the grains and the younger and more sodium-rich plagioclases occupy the rims. Because of their crystalline and chemical differences, the calcium-rich plagioclase cores have somewhat different optical properties than the sodium-rich rims, which produce the noticeable concentric zoning in the grains in Austin's thin section photograph. Besides plagioclase feldspars, chemicals in cooling magmas deep within the Earth may organize into pyroxenes, amphiboles and a large variety of other minerals.
In contrast, any melt that reaches the Earth's surface during an eruption will immediately quench into free dating sites in glass if it comes into contact with seawater or other surface waters.
The quenching process freezes the atoms in place and prevents them from organizing into crystals. In the presence of air, the lava may cool slowly enough that some VERY small minerals may grow. The highly disorganized volcanic glass matrix in Austin's Figure 4 appears black or 'isotropic' in crossed-polarized light. Unlike most minerals, which lighten and darken in crossed-polarized light as the microscope stage is rotated, volcanic glass always remains consistently dark under crossed-polarized light.
Furthermore, unlike disorganized and quickly carbon dating mount saint helens volcanic glass, well-zoned and developed feldspar crystals, such as those shown in Figure 4, don't form overnight.
On the basis of the glass and mineral textures and elementary melt chemistry, we know that the zoned plagioclases and other relatively large and well-developed minerals in Austin's dacite must have taken more time to grow than the surrounding glass matrix. By using high-temperature ovens in undergraduate university laboratories or even crystal-growing kits and kitchen chemicals, a normally intelligent person can verify that coarse crystals take more time to grow than finer-grained materials.
Clearly, basic crystal chemistry and physics dictates that zoned and other relatively large phenocrysts grew deep within the Earth and existed before the glass matrix that rapidly formed during the eruption.
Nevertheless, it is clear from Austin's essay that he has failed to incorporate the obviously diverse ages of the phenocrysts and the volcanic glass into his explanation for the origin of the dacite. Similarly, Swenson also fails to comprehend the indisputable history that is associated with the plagioclase zoning and to properly recognize the important age differences between the coarsest phenocrysts and the volcanic glass.
Obviously, if Austin wanted a sample that only represented the material that solidified during the eruption, he would have had to remove ALL of the plagioclase and other phenocrysts from the glass component. Even when phenocrysts as in Austin's Figure 4 and xenocrysts can be seen with an optical microscope, they can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to effectively separate from the glass.
I've attempted to separate very fined-grained minerals from glass in coal ashes by using magnetic separation and hydrofluoric and other acids. It's not easy. Specifically, Austin admits that most of his fractions are impure when he includes the term 'etc. Furthermore, Austin's descriptions in the following statements clearly indicate that he Carbon dating mount saint helens to adequately separate the phenocrysts and possible xenocrysts from the volcanic glass.
Austin admits:. Because Austin did NOT separate the plagioclase from the glass, we would expect this sample to contain a mixture of young glass, plagioclases with relatively old calcium-rich cores and moderately old sodium-rich rims. Because Austin clearly understands the heterogeneous composition of this 'fraction', he should have known that a K-Ar date on this mess carbon dating mount saint helens be meaningless. Again, the mineral textures, as well as the laws of chemistry and physics, dictate that the calcium-rich plagioclase cores grew at higher temperatures before the sodium-rich rims and that glasses only formed once the melt erupted at the surface.
Austin also states:. Mafic microphenocrysts within these glassy particles were probably dominated by the strongly magnetic Fe-Ti oxide minerals. The microscopic examination of the 'heavy-magnetic concentrate' also revealed a trace quantity of iron fragments, obviously the magnetic contaminant unavoidably introduced from the milling of the dacite in the iron mortar. No attempt was made to separate the hornblende from the Fe-Ti oxides, but further finer milling and use of heavy liquids should be considered.
At this point Austin admits that the iron mortar probably contaminated his sample. Although the contamination might have seriously affected any iron analyses, K canada reviews dating text Ar analyses may not have been affected.