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Author | Topic: Does radio-carbon dating disprove evolution? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
Perhaps the relevant isotopes of carbon and oxygen for this process aren't common? If that's the case, then you'd be correct in saying that neutrons shouldn't be a concern with radon gas. Or perhaps the link is just wrong.
Wouldn't be the first time that wrong information was found at wikipedia. Anybody can post an article there.Having said that though, the particular article in question does appear to be quite well written. The thing is that every other source that I have so far found says that alpha fusion with Nitrogen produces Oxygen plus a proton. These sources have pretty much all been directly talking about Rutherford's experiments as I detailed in Message 118I have found absolutely no information regarding Alpha-Carbon interaction or Alpha-Oxygen interactions other than articles about steller processes of Helium fusion and the triple Alpha process. It may be that certain other isotopes can be involved but it seems unlikely to me. I can't say for sure though. The vast majority of sites that I have found which talk in depth about Alpha particle interactions with lighter gasses, actually describe a process where the Alpha particle simply ionizes the atoms and breaks apart molecular bonds, thereby expending its energy without an actual collision.In the case of direct collisions they describe it like two pool balls hitting each other and bouncing off in different direction with no actual transmutation taking place at all.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
Johnfolton might request calculations showing how much crustal 14C would result from all the various sources, but I don't see the need for this. It would be very difficult to gather enough data and the relevant equations to actually calculate contribution figures, but we already know that the amount of residual 14C is proportional to the background level of radioactivity. There's no indication that anything else is going on, so obviously the residual 14C is due to processes (some of which we've already identified) driven by radioactivity.
Agreed.IMO it would be ludicrous to suggest there will not be some C14 formation by one or more of the discussed routes. Its rate of formation would appear to be in equilibrium with its rate of decay. Further, this could be confirmed by measuring the C12/C14 ratio in various rocks and comparing it to the concentration of radioactive isotopes in that rock. If we are correct then we should see a higher C14 component in rock such as uranium-rich granite than we would in something like sandstone. Of course we have to choose a rock or soil that contains significant Carbon/Nitrogen to start with and calculations would need to be made to take into account the Beryllium levels, without which we would have far fewer neutron. Sounds like an very interesting study for somebody to do. Unfortunately I don't have access to the kind of mass spec that would need to be used for Carbon ratios. I can measure the trans-uranics and Beryllium in the rock though.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
It appears the facts are pressing forward that the alpha particle (helium -4) is being deflected by the Coulomb barrier.
In air?... yes.In Soil?... some of the time. Unless the alpha impacts an atom of Lithium or berylium that is. Boron is questionable. Both these elements are equally as abundent as uranium and it is well known and documented that the coulomb barrier is not enough to prevent fusion when an alpha particle impacts one of them. So a potential source of neutrons unquestionably exists. The backround C14 radiation is explained by the leaching that mineralized the fossil. Leaching (the mineralization of the fossil) accounting for (the ratio being diluted) a disproportionate number of C12 atoms leached in comparision to C14 atoms being removed to the surroundings from the fossil being dated.
This relies on 2 assumptions.First, that the original C14 is all that we ever had (ie. all the other potential sources in situ are discounted) Second, that C14 does not leach out (during the mineralisation process) proportionally to C12. As to the first assumption, It is best not to enter into an investigation with the intent to make the answer come out the way we want it to so let's just let the evidence speak for itself. As Percy, myself and others have listed before in this thread, there are numerous potential in situ sources of C14, including one fission path in which Uranium directly fissions into C14. This has been observed, measured and repeated. It does happen. There is no doubt of that. It may not happen very often, perhaps one atom in 10,000,000 or so (pure guesstimate). This means that for any soil containing Uranium (remember that a Kg of average soil contains 2.52E19 atoms of Uranium) it's going to happen relatively often. A few C14 atoms per year is all we need.And let's not forget the other radioactive elements in the Uranium decay chain. There are a number of steps before it becomes lead. Some of them are extremely short and in every step, Alphas, the odd fission neutron and potentially fission directly to C14 is going to happen. Percy stated that..
Keep in mind that the amount of 14C found in any ground sample is proportional to the level of local background radioactivity. This could only be true if the radioactivity were responsible for the 14C.
I don't know if this is correct or not. It seems to me that this is a prediction made by the theory that C14 in the soil is created in situ by decay (fission or otherwise) of Uranium. If it has already been observed then it is corroborating eveidence. If not then it would be an extremely useful experiment to perform. If it is found to be true (or has been) for a representative number of samples, then it pretty much confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that C14 is being created in situ and thereby making older soils (which should not have any C14) look younger. As to your "isotopic fractionation due to leaching" theory, I wonder if you are even using it correctly in the context of this discussion. You suggest..
The backround C14 radiation is explained by the leaching that mineralized the fossil. Leaching (the mineralization of the fossil) accounting for (the ratio being diluted) a disproportionate number of C12 atoms leached in comparision to C14 atoms being removed to the surroundings from the fossil being dated.
that C12 is being preferentially removed during the mineralization of a fossil.Think it through a little. This would increase the proportion of C14 in the sample and would result in an artificially lowered age. NOT a higher age as you suggest here.. This is how coal or any mineralized wood fossil thats only up to 11,500 years could date 35,000 to 50,000 years.
For this to happen you would have to remove the C14, not the C12.Remember that any production of C14 in situ results in artificially lowered age readings as well. Besides this, there is no chemical leaching process that I know of that is able to change the C12/C14 ratio in any kind of sample. Please correct me with relevent links if I'm wrong here.Also I note that you are still refering to mineralized samples (fossils if you will) while I am being more general and discussing samples that have not yet even begun to undergo such a process. Soil is the medium I am focussing on for the moment. Mineralized soils are a similar but more complex scenario that I haven't even moved on to yet. A good example of such soils are the lake varves which Razd loves to bring up.They are a great example. No mineralization has taken place here. They are still just compacted mud with organic (not mineralised fossil) specimens contained therein. I would say that these varves would be a great place to perform the experiment I described earlier.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
A kinetic isotope fractionation occurs during AMO because methane composed of the lighter isotopes of C and H is oxidized slightly faster than methane composed of the heavier isotopes (Bigeleisen and Wolfsberg,1958). The magnitude of the effect is expressed as a fractionation factor,, which is defined as the ratio of relative reaction rates of molecules containing different isotopes(Rees,1973):
Thanks for the link. That looks like an extremely interesting paper. It is going to take me some time to read though all the information in there and get a grasp of exactly how it impacts our discussion here.
With more C12 being fractionated into the methane gas byproducts you would have more C12 available than C14 in solution to remineralize to the organic not easily digested. This would cause fossils to date older not younger, with C14 being fractionated into solution forming the digestable C14 backround radiation. With the methane gases transporting CO2 thus explaining that proportionately more C14 than C12 is bubbling upwards causing the upper sediments to date not older but younger. This is all I'm trying to convey that within the earth there is a whole lot of chemical reactions (not nucleur reactions)that are affecting the ratio's.
I think I see what you are suggesting now. You think that in deep sediment, the C14 is being converted preferentially to Co2 then bubbled up through the layers and deposited in the upper layers as the Aerobic mechanisms take over.This raises a number of questions though. If it was to happen this way, we should see the depth profile dating in the reverse direction should we not? Surface sediments aught to date older than deeper sediments due to the fractionation effects of this process. I don't doubt that there are chemical processes going on. They may well be the prevalent processes in some areas. Whether they have an effect on Radio-Carbon dating is the question.Either way you cannot entirely discount nuclear processes. They undoubtably happen. Again the question is to what extent? I wouls suggest that in certain places the nuclear processes would likely be prevalent. places like deep dry soil with a high content of granite would be the kind of place where it would likely be so. Wet marshy soils would be the most likely candidates for chemical processes to prevail. Over the next day or two I will carefully read your article and also do as JohnF suggested and see if I can find any relevent research papers through the university system I have to say that it makes a really nice change to actually discuss the science for both sides of an argument in one of these threads instead of mudslinging
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
This concept is as falsified as your leaching one by the data from Lake Suigetsu when analysed over the known time intervals
The Article referenced specifically addresses "Gassy Sediments".I haven't read the whole thing yet but it is appears to be very specific in the type of sediment effected. I don't think that Lake Suigetsu falls under than catagory anyway so for this particular case it is not even relevent.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
I am in the middle of a rather extensive search of all the relevent scientific literature I can find that relates to the issues of Radiocarbon dating and Uranium.
I am beginning to find myself drawn in directions that I did not anticipate. Yet what i am finding would tend to indicate that some of the things mentioned in this thread with respect to an in ground source of C14 may well be the case. Many researchers are describing a consistent trend of disagreement when comparing C14 dates to those obtained by other methods such as Uranium/Thorium dates and K/Ar to name a few. here are a couple of examples
quote: Strangely though, Corals are of marine origin so I don't really understand how the C14 age could be expected to be correct. Maybe I am missing something here.
quote: Again these are shells though I don't know if they are of marine origin or not. This one shows an agreement but I don't put much stock in these results, even though they are peer reviewed. The U/Th ratios were obtained via ICP-MS and that methodoligy is not a very precise tool for high precision ratio measurements. I will have to read more on this to see what their claimed precision is.
quote: Now this one is interesting. They artificially mixed some thorium in with a representative sample and experimentally proved an age bias can be introduced
quote: That is a big enough post for now. I will keep you all informed if i turn up anything else of interest.I should note though, that I have been unable to obtain the papers cited in the post that Razd linked.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
They'll be off by the "reservoir age" - typically 400 to 800 years - depending on how "old" the bicarbonate in the water is at the spot they grew. The 14C folks have a pretty good handle on this.
Yes I noticed a number of references to "reservoir age" and even a number of papers dedicated entirely to it. I got the idea that they consider it a non-issue that just has to be corrected for.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
Beryllium is purified from minerals within the earth so in this purified state its said to beable to liberate 30 neutrons for every million hits from an alpha particle
Same numbers that I came up with. You've been doing your research haven't you
It forms various molecular compounds that due to the coloumb barrier no reason or evidence in the natural its releasing neutrons. Is there any evidence that beryllium molecular chemical compounds (not beryllium) that are found within the earth are violating the coloumb barrier?
I really can't say if there is any evidence of it happening with naturally occurring beryllium or not at the moment. That is a very good question. If refined elemental Beryllium exhibits a different magnitude coulomb barrier than it would were it bonded to another element then this would indeed pose a possible problem for the hypothesis.I will see what i can dig up on the subject. I strongly suspect though , that Be compound will not exhibit any differences due to the usually ionic nature of bonds formed by alkali earth metals such as Be or Li. While searching for research on the subject I came across this reference.
quote:It would appear that Gamma rays can also induce neutrons when they impact Be atoms. I will attempt to pursue this line of investigation a little later.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
Thanks ChrisS. I will look into your references and see if I can get them from my local University library
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
From the first reference given by ChrisS i was able to pull up the abstract pretty easily.
quote:Unfortunately I cannot access an electronic version of the full paper. (I work 3 miles off campus so actually going to the library is difficult) From one of the other papers, I got this.
quote:This would appear to bear out the previously asserted point that C14 concentration in uranium rich soils is proportional to the Uranium concentration. |
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
I think I hit the jackpot this time.
This is by far the most informative information that I have come across so far. In This Article we see tables of low Z elements that will release a neutron via collision with alpha particles. There are actually a lot more of them than I had previously thought. Sorry for leaving this as a bare link. The darn thing is a pdf and doesn't easily lend itself to conversion to text.(Try loooking at the html version for a laugh)Here are a couple of google's html translations that i felt particularly amusing. The alpha decay process leads to the emission of gamma rays tlom unstable &ughters (see Chapter 1). Also, the alpha @rticles can ”prpduce neutrons through (%n) reactions with certain elements. This source of neuons ean be comparable in intensity to spontaneous fission if isotopes W@ high alpha decay rates such as 233U,2MU,238Fu,or 241Amare pnt: This section describes thep@wtion of neutrons by (n) reactions and provides wrne guidelines for&kxdating@,expeeted neutron yield. Folloiving km two extiples ofn) Aactioni that occur in many nuclear fiel cycle And especially this one.
When the alpha piirticle’dives at ahoter nucleus, the probabili@ of a reaction
So now we know. It's all down to "the diffiwin in bindingergh% between the two initial nuclei".depends on the C@lue,e threshold enew, and the height of the Coulomb barrier. The Qdue is the ,diffiwim in bindingergh% between the two initial nuclei and the two final reaktion ”products! A!tisitive Bet you are all really relieved to hear that. As to the issue of there being a difference between the chance of a Be atom accepting an Alpha particle, depending on its chemical form... Consider the following. From table 11.4, the coulomb barrier of Be9 is 2.9 MeVFrom table 11.3, the average energy of an alpha emitted by the decay of U238 is 4.19 MeV. From this we can see that there is far more energy than is needed to overcome the coulomb barrier. If we compare MeV to the typical bond strengths of covalent bonds, we find that the bond strength is utterly insignificant in comparrison. For example, the strongest covalent bond known is the Nitrogen Nitrogen triple bond. It's strength is 945 Kj/mol.However we are looking at the strength of 1 bond, not a mol of them. 945/6.022 E23 (Avogadro's number) comes to 1.66 E-22 Joules of energy required to break a single (triple)N-N bond. 1 megaelectron volt (MeV) = 1.60217646 E-13 joules That means that one of our alpha particles (4MeV) has about 4,000,000,000 times the amount of energy needed to cleeve that covalent bond. Berylium bonds are a whole lot weaker than N-N so I think you get the picture.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
The earth has sediments and are they not shielding the beryllium from the alpha particle? In the air the alpha particle can travel a couple of centimenters before its energy has expired, yet within the earth is not the problem that "the alpha particle is immediately absorbed by the sediments"?
Of course the alpha is pretty much immediately absorbed by the sediment.The vast majority of alpha particles are going to hit something else than beryllium. It only takes a few. The molecular compounds, nitrogen oxides (n14) would not produce neutrons and if beryllium did by chance get hit directly by an alpha particle. Would it not take 1,000,000 direct hits before 30 neutrons could be generated?
Sure the conversion factor of the alpha-neutron reaction is only about 30 parts per million. I just don't see whay that is a problem. There are many many billions of radioactive disintegrations in a single kilogram of soil in any given year. It only takes one or two to make a C14 atom in order to raise the background to a continuous level.
Why would not the sediments that are not beryllium not immediately absorb the alpha particles energy depleting its ability to overcome the coloumb barrier?
I'm sure they do in a lot of cases.Remember that an alpha particle from a high mass radioactive isotope has somewhere in the vicinity of 4-5 MeV of energy. Beryllium has a coulomb barrier of about 2.9 MeV. The alpha can interact with a whole bunch of stuff before it loses enough energy to prevent it overcoming beryllium's coulomb barrier. The sediments that are shielding the beryllium within the earth could explain why an alpha particle would not overcome the coloumb barrier?
The sediments will certainly take away some of the energy from the alpha. The further it has to travel, the less energy is left. Again, though, all it takes is the odd successful transmutation to produce a continuum C14 background.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
I'll let PurpleYouko handle this one, but it seems to me that a direct hit is a direct hit, and that as long as the energy of the alpha particle is sufficient it should always result in a neutron.
Not quite percy, although it might appear that it should.Almost all nuclear interactions like this are able to proceed along various different pathways. A specific pathway has a specific yield percentage. JohnFolton is correct that for ever million Alpha-Beryllium impacts, only 30 neutrons producing reactions occur. However these neutrons often impact other heavier nuclei resulting in "Induced fission" in some cases. Since fission often produces 3 or more neutrons, it becomes possible that a single Alpha-Be fusion can set off a cascade of 10 or more neutrons.
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
This feels very high to me. I'd have guessed at 1,000 to a million times lower. Is it right?
Dunno really. it was a "off-the-top-of-my-head" estimate due to limited time to do the actual math. Tell you what, i will do it noe and find out for sure. From my earlier post Message 100That means that for every kilogram of soil, there are 10 miligrams of Uranium.
The half life of U238 is 4.47E9 (4.47 billion) years1 mol of Uranium (238g) = 6.02E23 atoms (Avagadros number) Therefore 10 miligrams of soil would contain 2.52E19 atoms of Uranium (sounds a lot doesn't it?)That means that half of the U238 present in soil right now will be gone in 4.47 billion years so a quick estimate (if it were linear rather than exponential) would be just a case of dividing the number of atoms lost in that time by the time itself. 2.52E19 / 4.47E9 / 2 = 2.82E9 That makes an average of 2.82 billion disintigrations per year from Uranium alone. The real number is much higher for right now since the real fit is exponential. Nearer to 10 billion. Now take into account the disintigrations from U235, Thorium, Radium, Radon and all of the other semi and meta-stable isotopes in the Uranium decay chain I'm not going to bother doing all the math for every one of them but I think you must get the picture by now. I think many many billions of disitigrations per year per Kg of natural soil is actually quite a conservative estimate. Scary isn't it?
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PurpleYouko Member Posts: 714 From: Columbia Missouri Joined: |
However even if the coloumb barrier was being violated by the alpha particle there still is not enough neutrons from a evolutionists perspective (to explain them affecting the initial setting of the various radioactive clocks) to explain away a young earth.
I only see the beryllium compound binding not with the radioative elements emitting alpha particles. This increases their combined compounds coloumb force preventing the alpha particle from bouncing from beryllium atom to beryllium atom as appears whats happening within pure beryllium crystals.
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I'm also not sure what relevence you ascribe to an alpha pareticle bouncing around.
The combined coloumb forces of additional millions (perhaps billions) of atoms separating these beryllium compounds (coloumb barrier) from being hit with enough energy to created even 30 neutrons (perhaps none) within the earth.
Coulomb forces do not combine in this way. The coulomb force we are discussung is the repulsive force between an alpha particle and a single nucleus of beryllium. Atomic nuclei are way too far apart for any one of them to have any effect on another one.If you mean "combine" in the sense that coulomb forces from other atoms will have an effect on the mean free path of an alpha particle then I'm not arguing with you. The mean free path is incredibly short. I would be surprised if it was any more than a fraction of a milimeter in soil. What is it that makes you think that some Be atoms are not allowed to be right next to a U238 atom though?
Its not like whats happening within a crystallized beryllium solid state. Where the reflective coloumb forces would be reflecting the alpha particle (trapping the alpha particle) temporarily within this crystallized hexagonal close-packed pure beryllium state.
This isn't the way it works.An alpha from a U238 has way too much energy to be reflected. It is going to travel in a pretty much straight line till it directly hits something, encounters an atom with a coulomb barrier higher than its own energy or simply picks up stray electrons to become Helium. The 30ppm cited in this thread is an experimentally derived fractional reaction path based on the successful fusions between a Be nucleus and an Alpha particle.out of 1,000,000 successful fusions, only 30 produce a fast neutron. The rest produce something else. It has nothing to do with the crystaline structure of Beryllium. All that serves to do is to narrow the inter neucleic distance and therefore make direct collisions a little more likely. Looking at the formula weight of these beryllium compounds it would only increase the coloumb forces surrounding the beryllium atom.
Molecular weight has absolutely nothing to do with the coulomb barrier of a single atom. I have already shown in message 156 Message 156 that the energy of an energetic alpha particle has more than 4,000,000,000 times the energy of the strongest known molecular bond. What you suggest is a little like saying that by hanging a sheet of paper in front of a glass window, it will help to prevent the cannon ball that I have just fired, from breaking it. Molecular effects on neucleic coulomb barriers are less than negligable.
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