The Age of the Earth
Here is a list of natural phenomena which conflict with the evolutionary idea that the earth is billions of years old. Each item imposes a maximum possible age which is much less than the required evolutionary age. Much more young-earth evidence exists, but we have chosen these items for brevity and simplicity.
Earth´s
continents erode too fast
Each year, water and wind erode about 25 billion tones of dirt and rock
from the continents and deposit it in the ocean.(1) At that rate, it would
take only 15 million years to erode all land above sea-level.
Yet, most of the land is supposed to have been above sea-level for hundreds
of millions of years. Theories concerning the rising of land as it
gets lighter following erosion are inadequate to compensate for all of
this discrepancy.
Not
enough sediment on the sea floors
The latest geologic theories (plate tectonics) say the ocean floors are
200 million years old. At the present rate of sedimentation from
the continents, there should be many miles of sediment on the ocean floor.
Yet the average, the ocean floor has only about 800 feet of sediments.
This implies that the present ocean floors have existed less than 15 million years. Some evolutionists would argue that theories of subduction (large areas of ocean floor pushed deep into the earth) could overcome this problem. However, the slow rate of subduction implied by the ´200 million years´ mentioned above could not dispose of more than 10 per cent of the incoming sediments, far too little to account for the discrepancy. Also there are large areas of sea-floor (e.g. the Tasman Sea off Australia) which cannot be part of such ´subduction zones´. For these reasons, the argument for the youth of the sea floors appears valid.
The
ocean accumulates sodium too fast
Every year, rivers and other sources dump more than 450 million tones
of sodium into the ocean.(2) Only 27 per cent of this sodium manages to
get back out of the sea each year.(3) As far as anyone knows, the remainder
simply accumulates in the ocean.
If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today´s input and output rates.(4) This is much less than the imagined evolutionary age of the ocean - three billion years.
The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been lees and outputs greater. However, calculations which are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years.(5) Calculations (6) for many other sea-water elements give much younger ages for ocean.
The
earth´s magnetic field is decaying too fast
The energy stored in the earth´s magnetic field has steadily decreased
by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1,000 years.(7) At that rate the field
could not be more that 10,000 years old.
Fossil
radioactivity shortens ´geologic ages´ to a few years
Radiohaloes are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive
minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay.(8)
´Squashed´ Polonium-210 radiohaloes indicate that Jurassic,
Triassic and Eocene formations in the Colorado Plateau were deposited
within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart
as required by the conventional timescale.(9)
´Orphan´ Polonium-218 radiohaloes, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply either instant creation or drastic changes in radioactivity decay rates.(10)
Not
enough helium in Earth´s atmosphere
All naturally occurring families of radioactive elements generate helium
as they decay. If such decay took place for billion of years, as alleged
by evolutionists, much helium should have found its way into the earth´s
atmosphere. Assuming no helium was in the atmosphere to begin with, it
would take less than 11,600 years to accumulate the small amount of helium
in the air today.(11)
This means the atmosphere is much younger than the evolutionary five billion years - again consistent with a recent creation (6,000 years) of a functional atmosphere.
Too
much helium in hot rocks
A study published in Geophysical Research Letters shows that helium produced
by radioactive decay in deep, hot rocks has not had time to escape. Though
the rocks are supposed to be billions of years old, their helium retention
suggests an age much less than millions of years.(12)
For
more informations see:
- Origins:
Linking Science and Scripture by Ariel Roth
- The
Young Earth by John Morris
- In the Beginning
by Walter Brown
- Creation´s
Tiny Mystery by Robert Gentry
References:
1. Gordeyev, H. and Elsasser, Physics of the Galaxy and Interstellar
Matter, Springler-Verlag, Berlin, 1987, pp. 352-353, 401-413.
2. a) Maybeck, M., ´Concentration des eaux fluviales en elements
majeurs et apports en solution aux oceans´, Rev. de Geol. Dyn.
Geogr. Phys., Vol. 21, 1979, p. 215. b) Austin, S.A. and D.R. Humphreys,
´The sea´s missing salt: a dilemma for evolutionists´,
Proceedings of the Second International Conference of Creationism,
Vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, 1991, in press.
3. a) See ref. 2b. b) Sayles, F.L. and P.C. Mangeladorf, ´Cation-exchange
characteristics of Amazon River suspended sediment and its reaction with
seawater´, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Vol. 41, 1979,
p. 767.
4. See ref 2b.
5. See ref 2b.
6. Austin, S.A., ´Evolution: the oceans say no!´, ICR Impact,
No. 8, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA., October 1973.
7. Merrill, R.T. and M.W. McElhinney, The Earth´s Magnetic Field,
Academic Press, London, 1983, pp. 101-106.
8. Gentry, R.V., ´Radioactive halos´, Annual Review of
Nuclear Sci., Vol. 23, 1973, pp. 347-362.
9. Gentry, R.V. et al, ´Radiohalos in coalified wood: new evidence
relating to time of uranium introduction and coalification´, Science,
Vol. 194, October 15, 1976, pp. 315-318.
10. a) Gentry, R. V., ´Radiohalos in radiochronological and cosmological
perspective´, Science, Vol. 184, April 5, 1974, pp. 62-66.
b) Gentry, R.V., Creation´s Tiny Mystery, Earth Science Associates,
Knoxville, TN, 1986, pp. 23-37, 51-59, 61-62.
11. Vardiman, L., ´The age of the earth´s atmosphere estimated
by its helium content´, Proceedings of the First International Conference
on Creationism, Vol. II, Creatoin Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh,
1987, pp. 187-195.
12. Gentry, R.V. et al, ´Differential helium retention in zircons:
implications for nuclear waste management´, Geophys. Res. Lett.,
Vol. 9, October 1982, pp. 1129-1130.