Validity of Radiometric Dating

I'm interested in the evidence for this - I can't seem to find much.Obviously igneous can cool/form quickly, and I supposed at least contact metamorphism can happen fast. Can you point me to a link to support this claim? It would be quite useful for me.Thanks
JB

They have also been known to form slowly.And why is it so difficult to understand that fast processes do not indicate short time spans? Why can we not have a rapid process happening 100 my ago?

Well, it's not really a burning issue in geology. I can give you examples of rapid formation of each rock type, but they all require very specific conditions which don't control the deposition of the entire crust.The Hawaiian Islands have been developing for tens of millions of years but any given rock body probably forms within minutes to thousands of years.This is basically a stupid YEC argument.

Among sedimentary rocks, I believe I remember that beachrock can form quite rapidly in the right conditions.Another example would be Fly Geyser, here in the Silver State. The rock, I presume, is travertine, and we know that the geyser has only existed since 1964. Yes, it really looks like that.Then there's Sunday Stone, formed from dust produced by coalmining. Obviously the lithification can't predate the opening of the mine.

Wow -- two totally cool examples.I reverse engineering your photo link and read the Sunday Stone story - fascinating. Like Varves.Thanks
JB

I am NOT arguing that rock can form in short time periods.
Mineral deposits and lime build up are not "rocks." Very often, when the "source" of the build up goes away, the mineral becomes weak and breaks up or dissolves.
Yes, all rocks are made of minerals, but not all minerals make "good" rock material.That said, I agree ... those are a couple of great photos of mineral deposits.

See? See!!!???
First gay marraige, and now gay rainbow geysers!!

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The consilience is due to the decay being proportionate.

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If the decay rates had changed significantly at any time in the last 50,000 years, it would be easily seen in the tree ring, lake varve, and ice core records. If the decay accelerated enough to account for a young earth, there would not be any measurable carbon in any ring, varve, or core which pre-dates such an event, since the accelerated decay would get rid of short-lived isotopes extremely rapidly.Instead, what we observe is carbon concentration in the annual layers consistent with a constant decay rate with variable atmospheric carbon-14 concentration.So, you would need to come up with a mechanism by which long-live isotopes are affected by a LOT, but short-lived ones, not so much, and result in consilient data.

Yup.When YECs get backed into a corner, they call it a world wide conspiracy to fake results. Then they claim it's just human nature acting, subconsciously tweaking to fir preconceptions.Of course they have no idea how impossible it would be to fake all the consilience even if people consciously tried.

In past discussions, mindspawn insisted that a small factor of 10-12 was all that was needed to fix up radioactive dating. He has argued for a method of changing the varve aging by 10-12 years (using a complete bogus salt-tide explanation that is discredit in some of the references he uses) that happened to exactly match the rate at which rate of speed up of nuclear decay. He also seems to forget how many tidal cycles there actually are in a year.But during the discussion his need for a radioactive dating mismatch for older ages has expanded to the current level which I put at 10^5-10^6 increase in the past. But in fact, none of us actually know exactly what his current requirements are for C-14 dating or exactly at what rate the current slow rate of decay has kicked in. But with C-14, there is also the issue of the changing production rate, so C-14 may have a different mindspawn explanation.His current position is idiotic on many levels. But in particular, given that different isotopes even of the same absorb element neutrons at different rates, his explanation cannot explain away agreement by various aging techniques. In fact, if we found a natural sample of Uranium with a reduced sample of daughter products, that would imply recent age rather than ancient age. So his proposal does not even work. It's just moronic.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

If they are going to fake the results, one wonders why they even bother spending money on the tests...

Welcome to the fray, 46&2. Because it creates a patina of scientific "truth" to fool the gullibles.Another one to add to the list of creationist problems is the comparison between Polonium Halos and Uranium Halos ...Enjoy

They don't. They spend the money on Satanic orgies and then say they've done the tests.

I never said you were. In fact, you've hardly posted on this thread. Unless you're mindspawn's sock-puppet. Even rocks that are not "good" rocks are rocks. And travertine is actually an excellent rock, people make floor tiles out of it.More travertine terraces, Pamukkale, Turkey ... these presumably took rather longer.

Thanks. I've been a lurker for a few years, even prior to my join date. I appreciate all the work you have put in here; incredibly thorough, and extremely informative. Edited by 46&2, : No reason given.