Helium in the atmosphere. Evidence for or against a young earth?

But isn't the decay of uranium much slower than that of potassium-argon? Therefore alot more argon should be produced than helium... Simply because there hasn't been enough time for enough of the uranium to decay using the creationist timeframe, while potassium-40 has a much shorter half-life. If there is much more uranium than potassium-40, then according to the evolutionist model then there should be more helium in the atmosphere. Because according to the evolutionist model there has been billions of years since the earth formed, allowing most of the uranium to have decayed. I think you got your argument the wrong way around. But correct me if I'm wrong please.[This message has been edited by blitz77, 07-28-2002]

Since according to the evolutionist model there has been billions of years, most of the argon should have escaped into the atmosphere, as well as the helium. But remember, a lot of the helium is also found in rocks, suggesting they did not have enough time to escape. Now a major debating point is how much helium escapes into space. Most scientists agree that little helium escapes into space, and much more enters the atmosphere than escapes by the earths movement around the solar system from inter-solar gas. Therefore according to the evolutionist model there should be even more helium in the atmosphere than the creationist model, because more uranium would have decayed and more gas absorbed by earth's orbit around the sun.I'll give you two articles:
Excess argon
and heliumThe first one about excess argon is quite interesting in its implications.