Potassium Argon Sensitivity Analysis

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Sorry, you are wrong. Nothing that occurs on or in the Earth speeds up radioactive decay significantly.

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And neutron flux doesn't speed up radioactive decay. Period. It does transmute elements, often into radioactive ones. If you want to claim otherwise, let's see a reference. You are damaging your credibility seriously by making this claim,

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I thought I did that in the previous post where K40 converts to A40 through irradiation done in a nuclear reactor located on the earth. You might not call it "nuclear decay" per se but the end result is the same. The data comes from a geotechnology lab. So are you telling me this is wrong? I agree there could be a credibility issue developing, but only if you insist on there being one.

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The neutron flux on Earth today is far from enough to have any noticeable effect.

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Thank goodness it is. We wouldn't be here to talk about it otherwise.

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If the neutron flux were high enough in the past to have a significant effect, it would affect different methods differently and the consilience between methods, the big picture that you are studiously ignoring, would be disrupted.

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I can agree with that. Also it would kill off a lot of life.

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In fact a high neutron flux would actually increase the age reported by some methods, such as 206Pb/207Pb, because of the difference in cross-sections for the various Pb+n reactions. See NEUTRON REACTIONS AND Pb-ISOTOPIC RATIOS and Addendum: Derivation of the Neutron Reaction Correction Equation

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good point -- that serves as a cross-check.

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OK. Remember that bridge collapse in Minnesota on Aug 2, 2007? I think the engineers may have analyzed that wrong. I want to do my own analysis. Tell me how to do so. Now. In this forum. Include the data, please.

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This is typical of any engineering project, assuming nobody has done the analysis already. However, with dating methods the analysis has already been done.

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Do you see the similarity between my request and yours?

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Well not exactly. When I do an analysis and present the results to a non-technical audience it requires some explanation of how I got there. With a technicl audience it requires more. If I say, "Go do your own homework" they will tell me "Go find another job because that's what we were paying you for."On this forum nobody is getting paid -- so I don't really have the expectation. I do appreciate your effort, and it's time somebody communicated it in the right way. I feel I might be doing this for you and others.

ok, so activation energy in radioactive decay is independent of any external influence that we know of in today's science. It is purely probabilistic and totally unpredictable. When somebody can predict it, then we could have a discussion in that context after that person receives a nobel prize in science.Based on the information we have today, however, we must restrict ourselves to this limitation.In conclusion, the age testing method must exclude the physical byproducts that can be produced by either internal acivation energy or external radiation. Uranium-PB has been proposed as such.Thank you all.

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It isn't nuclear decay. Most technical people appreciate the need for precise terminology.

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Nuclear decay involves internal activation energy, but there are two ways to get A40 from K40. We can not assume all K40 comes from nuclear decay.This might be a reasonable approximation, and in the end the other way of getting it doesn't matter. This might be synonymous to evaluating a P delta V term in a water pump equation, where in theory it is real but reality it's too small to even matter.

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Then why are you asking?

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patience.Edited by Engineer, : No reason given.Edited by Engineer, : No reason given.

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The reason no educated informed honest person would not call it "nuclear decay" is because this does not match the definition of "nuclear decay" used in science.

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nuclear decay is based on internal activation energy in the nucleus and is not influenced by external radiation phenomena that we know of today. Whatever future discoveries there might be on predicting the activation energy has no bearing on this. Isn't this a better answer?

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If you are going to mix definition, all you accomplish is confusion, not clarity, and it certainly does not lead to credence in your argument that you don't know or use the proper terms in the way they are used in science.

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Personally I find it a little confusing to assume lava boiling out of a volcano supposedly has no argon in it. Maybe it's not enough to matter in many applications, but it does.

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Now we get to see if you can acknowledge making an error, or if you try to gloss over it or ignore it.

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I recognized it in my original statement, and I think you might have an axe to grind. The K40 can convert to A40 with an external irradiation influence.Someone might call A40 the daughter of "nuclear decay" per se from K40, but it is not necessarily so, as irradiation produces the same result.Edited by Engineer, : No reason given.Edited by Engineer, : No reason given.Edited by Engineer, : No reason given.

I made an error in definitions here, and have fixed it. Nuclear irradiation does not accelerate nuclear decay, it accelerates fission products, of which A40 can apparently be a fission product as well as a decay product of K40 as well as K41.I got the data from here:http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/labs/argon/Methods/home.html#irrad A40 can be an undesireable byproduct from irradiation of K40

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40Ar is produced by radioactive decay of 40K. Maybe in supernovae, too, but not in reactors. End of story.

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Yes indeed I am getting very confused. I read this table from a geochronology test lab:http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/labs/argon/Methods/home.html#irrad

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In addition to 39Ar production from 39K, several other 'interference' reactions occur during irradiation of the samples. Other isotopes of argon are produced from potassium, calcium, argon and chlorine. These are:

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I read the table to say that A40 is an undesirable irradiation byproduct for both K40 and K41.This isn't all that imporatant, but please correct me. I thought I could read a table.Edited by Engineer, : No reason given.

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I figured it was just a nit, but I'm trying to pay attention.