Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Part II.

I see one major problem with your argument and that is that it fails to deal with the quantities involved. To show that varves form as you suggest it must be the case that the amount of clay swept from the shore is sufficient to produce what appears to be an annual layer instead of a slightly greater concentration of clay within a layer.In short all you've got is a hypothesis which at this point still needs evidence to support it and only deals with part of the data. What you need to work out is how strong the waves need to be and how often such a situation occurs at Lake Suigetsu.I also note that neither of your links suggests that varves are naturally formed in the way you suggest. Does your hypothesis represent a situation which occurs anywhere in nature ?

Actually I'd like to see some evidence that your proposed mechanism can plausibly produce the results you need (which I estimate at a minimum of 10 pairs per year). Without even that you're just speculating - and speculating against the evidence of the corrolations with carbon dating for the material from Suigetsu itself and from other sources.

There's a theoretical limit of at least 50,000 years (I've seen 100,000 suggested). We've got good calibrations against dendrochronology for 11,000 years and the lake Suigetsu measurements were one of the various ways in which scientists are trying to get better calibrations for older dates.Anyone who says that C14 dates are only good for the last 5,000 years is behind the times.On the subjest of varves, in the past I've seen claims of up to 5 varves a year forming - which is well short of an average of 10. And that only accounts for around half the sediment in the sample.And the calibration isn't circular either - since there are limits to the plausible effects of changes in the production rates - and because it is compared with other calibrations, so only a factor which systematically affects everything to the same degree could possibly upset the results to any great degree.

Well there are lots of problems with your arguments.Bethauld's experiments add nothing to the discussion of Lake Suigetsu. They rely purely on hydrodynamic sorting.And why do you assume that Lake Suigetsu would have existed in its current form during the Flood, when according to YEC "Flood Geology" many areas were deeply buried in sediment to the point where a pre-existing lake would have been completely filled in. At the least you have to consider that there is a strong possibility that your model demands that Lake Suigetsu formed after the Flood.Further your model would not be expected to form large numbers of light-dark couplets because there would not be enough of the light material, and if you were to attribute a large proportion of the varves to such a short period the radiocarbon results become even more puzzling.[Another point has occurred to me - if wave erosion were to produce light-dark couplets in Summer surely we should see that the dark bands representing Winter would be significantly wider than the others - because the waves should still be eroding and depositing material even there].So all you have - even now - is speculations that could easily be false and do not explain the correlation between the varves and the radiocarbon dates, let alone the correlation with other dating methods.

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As the sediments compress it would appear that the that dissolved c-12/c-14 would bubble upward. This would be creating the illusion that each varve is slightly older, when multitudes of the varves could of formed suddenly by Bethauld's Law of hydrodynamic sorting.

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That won't work For carbon dating it is the ratio of C14 to C12 that is important. Dissolved CO2 "bubbling up" will not change that proportion. Berthauld's sorting doesn't work either.Having examined your link on kettle lakes, it states that they are depressions left after large blocks of ice left behind by the Ice Age melted. This does not leave much room for your "waves" - and since the usual YEC view is that the Ice Ages followed the Flood it leaves little or no room for the Flood to play any role at all in producing the varves.

Berthault's experiments depended on the hydrodynamic properties of the particles - not on colours. So you are not guaranteed regular light-dark couplets. Even on the evidence we have the conventional view explains the evidence better - especally when we take the dating correlations into account.And at this point in time I do not accept your idea on how Lake Suigetsu formed.

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Craig: You are not taking into account the bacteria that are consuming C-14 into their being. Its known that some anaerobic bacteria can assimulate the C-14 in the leaf into their being. When this anaerobic creature dies. The C-14 would become water soluable and bubble upward affecting the C-14/C-12 ratio.

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Do you actually understand what you are saying ? Are you really suggesting that there are bacteria that preferentially eat C14 ?

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This article specifically factually addressed C-14 has been consumed by anaerobic bacteria in a controlled study.

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That's completely wrong. What it SAID is the bacteria had no or almost no C14 in them because there was none in the kerogen they were eating. There's no support there for your idea. And there's not likely to be - anyone with a basic knowledge of chemistry would know that it was wildly unlikely that a bacterioum would somehow prefer one isotope of carbon over another.

You claimed:

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This article specifically factually addressed C-14 has been consumed by anaerobic bacteria in a controlled study.

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As I pointed out that was clearly false. The article specifically stated that there was virtually no C14 in the kerogen - and as a result virtually none in the bacteria either.Having shown that you now say:

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PaulK, The scientists know the bacteria are consuming the kerogen, because they designed their experiment so that kerogen was the only source of carbon available for the bacteria to eat.

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But that is not at issue and does not help your case at all because it provides absolutely NO evidence that it could upset the ratio of C14 to C12.You know it would have been far better to admit that you were wrong than to suddenly try to switch the subject. It's tactics like that that get creationists their - deserved - reputation for dishonesty.

You're just confusing yourself. There's no mention of new kerogen and the points you yourself make contradict that.So again I have to point out that the fact that the bacteria ate the kerogen is not being disputed - and it isn't relevant.On the other hand your suggestion that bacteria selectively ate C14 from the kerogen is an outright falsehood - the fact is that there was virtually no C14 in the kerogen in the first place.The only honest thing for you to do is to admit that you misread the article and what it actually says does not help you. Handwaving wildly in the hope that nobody will notice your error is typical creationist behaviour but rather less than honest.

Craig, if the sediment were enriched in C14 it would appear YOUNGER, not older. How would the sediment being older than the C14 dates show help a young Earth ?

Craig did specifically claim that the study showed bacteria eating C14
Message 107 - which is not really true.And since only selective eating of C14 would increase the apparent age, and Craig did not offer any other reasonable explanation of what he could mean (or a retraction) I see no reason to think that he meant anything else.

But in the experiment there was no C14 for them to eat. What Craig said was wrong.And if he thinks that just eating carbon will autmatically and consistently skew all the results in just the way he needs then he is being very, very, unrealistic.And if Craig ca't clarify what he really means I think that my interpretation is the most charitable since what he explicitly did say was wrong anyway - and if he didn't mean that the bacteria selectively ate C14 he was wrong again to even bring it up.

Actually the main reason I conclude that Craig is likely dishonest is not his initial error but the evasions and hand-waving that came afterwards. If he had simply admitted his error rather than tried to pretend that he hadn't said it then the issue wouldn't have come up.If you look back through the thread that ought to be clear.

I have to repeat that nobody has disputed that the bacteria eat kerogen - and you have not yet shown that it is relevant.The fact that you go on and on about this rather than simply admitting your error is non-productive and dishonest.