Radiometric Dating Questions and Answers

What is radiocarbon dating? Is it accurate?

• How accurate is Carbon-14 dating?
  (Chapter from the The Creation Answers Book. Deals not only with ¹⁴C dating but also with other forms of radiometric dating)
• Diamonds: a creationist’s best friend: Radiocarbon in diamonds: enemy of billions of years (contains a technical box replying to objections)
• Dating in Conflict (radiocarbon detected in coalified wood allegedly 20 million years old)
• Dating Dilemma: Fossil wood in ‘ancient’ sandstone
• Geological conflict: Young radiocarbon date for ancient fossil woodchallenges fossil dating
• The Dating Game
• The Dating Game (Semi-Technical — True Origins site)

Are there examples of inaccurate results obtained from the potassium/argon dating method (the most cited method)?

• The Cause Of Anomalous Potassium-Argon ‘Ages’ for recent andesite flows at Mt Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, and the Implications for Potassium-Argon ‘Dating’
  (Technical — Research by then-CMI scientist published on ICR site)
• Radioactive ‘dating’ failure: Recent New Zealand lava flows yield ‘ages’ of millions of years
  (popular article based on above technical paper)
• Excess Argon within Mineral Concentrates from the New Dacite Lava Dome at Mt St Helens volcano (Technical)
• Radio-dating in rubble (popular article based on above technical paper)
• The pigs took it all
• How do you date a New Zealand volcano?
• ‘Excess Argon’: The ‘Achilles’ Heel’ of potassium-argon and argon-argon ‘dating’ of volcanic rocks (Semi-Technical, ICR Impact)
• Potassium-Argon and Argon-Argon dating of crystal rocks and the problem of excess argon (Semi-Technical, ICR Impact)

How can the radiometric dates of millions and billions of years old be so wrong?

• The way it really is: little-known facts about radiometric dating (available in Spanish)
• Dating doubt
• Excessively old ‘ages’ For Grand Canyon lava flows (Semi-Technical, ICR Impact)
• Dubious radiogenic Pb behavior places U-Th-Pb mineral dating in doubt
  (Semi-Technical, ICR Impact)
• The Failure of U-Th-Pb ‘Dating’ at Koongarra (Technical)
• The Dating Game (Semi-Technical — True Origins site)
• Flaws in dating the earth as ancient
• Radioactive age estimation methods — Do they prove the earth is billions of years old? (Christian Answers Network)
• Conflicting ‘ages’ of Tertiary basalt and contained fossilised wood, Crinum, Central Queensland, Australia (Technical, PDF)
• Radioactive ‘Dating’ in Conflict! (popular article based on above technical paper)
• Tree ring dating (dendrochronology) [and does it reliably calibrate carbon-14 dating?] (available in Spanish)
• National Geographic magazine joins the dating game
• Is the absence of short-lived radionuclides a problem for the Biblical timescale
  (Semi-Technical, reply to critic)
• (My chemistry prof.) Out of his depth on radioactive dating
  (Letter from supporter, includes reply)
• Evolutionist debater fails to understand young-earth arguments
  (Letter from supporter about a debate opponent, includes refution of opponent)

Is there any evidence that radioactive decay rate might not have been constant?

• RATE group reveals exciting break-through!
• Billion-fold Acceleration of Radioactivity Demonstrated in Laboratory (Semi-Technical)
• Radioactive decay rate depends on chemical environment (Semi-Technical)
• Radioisotopes in the diabase sill (Upper Precambrian) in Bass Rapids, Grand Canyon, Arizona: A application and test of the isochron dating method [technical; discordant isochrons point to differentially accelerated nuclear decay]
• Nuclear decay: evidence for a young world [Helium diffusion rates] (Semi-Technical, ICR Impact)
• Helium diffusion rates support accelerated nuclear decay (Technical, PDF, ICR Impact)
• Russell Humphreys refutes atheistic apostate Kevin Henke’s verbose attack on RATE group helium diffusion paper above (Round 1, Round 2, True Origins site)
• Helium evidence for a young world continues to confound critics

What is the current creationist thinking on radiohalos (formerly called ‘pleochroic halos’)?

• The collapse of ‘geologic time’
• New radiohalo find challenges primordial granite claim
• New record of polonium radiohalos, Stone Mountain granite, Georgia (USA)
• Polonium Radiohalos: Still ‘A Very Tiny Mystery’ (Semi-Technical, ICR Impact)
• [Uranium and polonium] Radiohalos: significant and exciting research results (Evidence of accelerated decay during the Flood year, Semi-Technical, ICR Impact)