Carbon dating is based on the ratio of ordinary carbon (12C) and radioactive carbon (14C) or concentration of 14C. Carbon-14 is an unstable form of carbon that decays into nitrogen (14N) at a measured rate-and this forms the basis of carbon-14 dating.
During the life of an organism, the concentration of 14C remains the constant. After an organism died the 14C decays, making the ratio between 12C and 14C larger. The half-life of 14C is about 5 600 years meaning that 5 600 years after the death of an organism, the concentration of 14C will be halved.
It’s long been known that radiocarbon (i.e. carbon-14, or 14C) keeps popping up reliably in samples (of coal, oil, gas, etc.) which are supposed to be ‘millions of years’ old. However, with the short half-life of 14C it should decay to zero in only some tens of thousands of years at the most.
In 2003 a group of researchers performed an unusual test on 10 coal samples obtained from Pennsylvania State University. The researchers wanted to see if carbon-14 could be detected in the coal samples. This test might be considered ‘unusual’ because carbon-14 decays relatively fast and should not be detectable after a maximum of 90,000 years. Yet the coal samples tested came from strata allegedly ranging in age from 37 million to 318 million years. The laboratory results were clear; all of the 10 coal samples contained carbon-14; and in similar amounts. This seriously undermines the evolutionary dates for the rock strata containing the coal, because the presence of carbon-14 affirms that the coal samples cannot be millions of years old.
Although the carbon dating gave somewhat more consistent results, is it alarming that the “ages” of 37 to 318 million are reported for the same materials where carbon-dating estimates ages of 64 900 to 80 000 years. Is this acceptable for the scientific community?
At the Universities of California–Riverside and –Los Angeles, nine natural diamonds from Brazil were analysed. All nine diamonds are conventionally regarded as being at least of early Palaeozoic age, that is, at least several hundred million years old. So, if they really are that old, they should not have any intrinsic carbon-14 in them. Eight of the diamonds yielded radiocarbon “ages” of 64,900 years to 80,000 years. The ninth diamond was cut into six equal fragments, which were each analysed separately. They yield essentially identical radiocarbon “ages” ranging from 69,400 years to 70,600 years. This suggests the carbon-14 was evenly distributed through this diamond, which is consistent with it being intrinsic carbon-14, and not contamination.
Furthermore, samples of Ceylon graphite from Precambrian meta- morphic rock (conventionally around 1 billion years old) were analysed at the same time and yielded radiocarbon “ages” of from 58,400 years to 70,100 years. So, some scientist report 70 100 years and others 1 billion. A variation of only 5 840 000 000%. Somewhat better than the dates for coal.
Who is the closest to dating this graphite?
So, if scientist report ages of diamonds, coal and graphite to be millions of years old, can we belief them? Is the method unreliable or are the reporters unreliable? Please note that they are all scientist. Who said, in the first place, the coal, diamonds and graphite are millions of years old? On what did they base their evaluation?
This let me wonder if we can trust any of the ages reported. How was the age of the earth estimated at 4,6 billion years? If any of the methods used to estimate the age of coal, diamonds and graphite was applied, we might as well accept that the earth is between about 100 years to 92 000 000 billion years old. Quite accurate?
Another example of mis-dating ages is the results of a number of wood samples from ‘old’ sites (e.g. samples with Jurassic fossils, samples inside Triassic sandstone, and samples burnt by Tertiary basalt). In each case, with contamination eliminated, the result has been in the thousands of years, i.e. 14C was present when it ‘shouldn’t have been’.
The bottom line is that virtually all biological specimens, no matter how ‘old’ they are supposed to be, show measurable 14C levels. This effectively limits the age of all buried biota to less than (at most) 250,000 years. (When one takes into account the probability that before the Flood the ratio of radioactive to ‘normal’ carbon was much lower,7 the calculated age comes right down into the biblical ‘ballpark’.)
Interestingly, specimens which appear to definitely be pre-Flood seem to have 14C present, too, and importantly, these cluster around a lower relative amount of 14C. This suggests that some 14C was primordial (existing from the very beginning), and not produced by cosmic rays—thus limiting the age of the entire earth to only a few thousand years.
This appears to have been somewhat spectacularly supported when Dr Baumgardner sent five diamonds to be analyzed for 14C. It was the first time this had been attempted, and the answer came back positive—14C was present. The diamonds, formed deep inside the earth, are assumed by evolutionists to be over a billion years old. Nevertheless, they contained radioactive carbon, even though, if the billion-year age were correct, they ‘shouldn’t have’.
This is exceptionally striking evidence, because a diamond has remarkably strong lattice bonds (that’s why it’s the hardest substance known), so subsequent atmospheric or biological contamination should not find its way into the interior.
The diamonds’ carbon-dated ‘age’ of about 58,000 years is thus an upper limit for the age of the whole earth. Again, this is entirely consistent with helium diffusion results reported above, which indicate the upper limit is in fact substantially less.8,9
14C workers have no real answer to this problem, namely that all the ‘vast-age’ specimens they measure still have 14C. Labelling this detectable 14C with such words as ‘contamination’ and ‘background’ is completely unhelpful in explaining its source, as the RATE group’s careful analyses and discussions have shown. But it is no problem or mystery at all if the uniformitarian/long-age assumptions are laid to one side and the real history of the world, given in Scripture, is taken seriously. The 14C is there, quite simply, because it hasn’t had time to decay yet. The world just isn’t that old!
The 14C results are an independent but powerful confirmation of the stunning helium-diffusion results. It looks like 2003 was a bad year for mega-chronophiles (lovers of long ages), but a good year for lovers of the Word of God.