Basics of Dating
What are forms of the same element that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons?
Isotopes
What is the separation of isotopes by physical processes during the cooling of magma?
Fractionalism
What is happening to the amount of salt in the ocean?
Increasing
What is the method of dating trees which have lived in the past 10,000 years by collecting a core sample from a tree and counting the rings?
Dendrochronology
What is the half-life of Potassium-40?
1.25 billion years
What is the time it takes for one half of a parent element's atoms to break down into its daughter elements?
Half-life
Which type of dating does not need to know the original amount of parent element in a rock?
Isochron dating
What is a mass of rock and dirt held together by ice that travel through space on regular orbits?
Comets
According to evolutionists, what space object should we not see?
Short-period comets
What's the half-life of Carbon-14?
5,730 years
What's the difference between a parent and a daughter element?
Parent element - the radioactive element that decays
Daughter element - the stalbe element into which a parent element decays
What is the homogenity assumption?
The idea that the ratio of the two isotopes of the same element is constant throughout the rock
What is a supernova?
A violent explosion that makers the end of the lives of massive stars
What is thermoluminescence?
A method used to date achaeological materials such as flint or pottery by measuring the elecrons they release fter bieng exposed to radiation
Radiometric dating is normally done on what type of rock? What do scientists then assume about the surrounding rock layers?
Igneous rock
It's older
How does Helium diffusion support the idea of a young-earth? Is it a fool-proof method? Explain.
It does. Studying the rate at which the rocks diffuse leads us toan age of 6000 (+ or - 2000 years).
It is not a fool-proof method, since we don't know if the rate of diffusion has always been the same
What do scientists assume about the amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere? Is that a correct assumption and how would that affect Carbon-14 dating?
It has always been the same
No. Carbon-14 levels have been increasing in the atmosphere
Carbon-14 dating would be faulty
Dynamo theory - the Earths interior has a "self-exciting dynamo" in its core that produces electricity and adds to the Earth's magnetic field occasionally
Dynamic decay theory - the Earth "energy" has alwasy decreased
List three assumptions of radiometric dating and the issues with each assumption.
Assumption 1: The rate of decay has always been constant.
Problem 1: It's a leap of faith to assume that it would be true for 4.5 billion years. So possibly, but impossible to prove.
Assumption 2: there is no way that either parent or daughter material has gotten out of the rock
Problem 2: It has been provent that parent or daughter elemetns can either be removed or added to a rock
Assumption 3: The original composition of the rock is known.
Problem 3: no way to test and record that. No way to konw that there was no daughter element presnet when the first rock formed
Why is Potassium-argon dating an inaccurate dating method? What about rubidium-strontium?
Potassium-argon: while agon gas should be released as the rock cools down, evidence suggests that excess argon can get trapped in the cooling magma. It also gives wildly incorrect ages for known events (ex. Mt. Saint Helens)
Rubidium-strontium: Ground water can leach out both rubidium and strontium from the rock. Also gave wildly varied dates on the Grand Canyon
Explain the two stages of supernova remnants. Between evolutionists and Creationists, who is most accurate at predicting the amount of second-stage SNRs?
First stage: the cloud of dust expands to about 7 light years. Takes about 300 years.
Second wave: blast wave sends out very powerful radiowaves. Dust cloud extends another 350 light years in the next 120,000 years
The reality is that 200 observed second-stage SNRs exist, which Creationist predict 125 second-stage SNRs
Give three reasons as to why radioactive elements are unstable.
Too many neutrons
Too many electrons
Nuclei are too large for stability