Radiometric Dates

Radiometric Dates

Professional, peer-reviewed papers about radiometric dates from the perspective of a recent creation and global Flood within a biblical framework.

A Biblical Timescale for Radiocarbon Dating

A Biblical Timescale for Radiocarbon Dating

Marshall Jordan • May 29, 2024

The low content of C-14 in fossil fuels implies that the atmospheric C-14 level in the pre-Flood world was less than 1% of today’s level, in contrast to the uniformitarian assumption.

The Origin of Oil—A Creationist Answer

The Origin of Oil—A Creationist Answer

John Matthews • Dec. 17, 2008

The dominant view of the origin of oil amongst western oil companies until 1969 was that it was due to the decay of living matter. Now other views are making themselves heard.

Mars, a Testament to Catastrophe

Mars, a Testament to Catastrophe

Charles Creager, Jr. • July 23, 2008

The unlikely geographic relationship between these gigantic features suggests a cause and effect relationship between them. This implies a global Martian catastrophe comparable to the Genesis Flood.

Radiometric Dates on Answers Research Journal

Radiometric, radioactive, or radioisotope dating is a technique used to date rocks or carbon-bearing materials and ancient artifacts in which trace radioactive impurities were incorporated when they were formed. The method compares the abundance of a naturally occurring parent radioactive atom (called an isotope) within the material to the abundance of its decay products (daughter atoms), which form via radioactive decay. This method contains many assumptions, including that the rate of radioactive decay has been constant. This assumption allows researchers to use the ratio of parent/daughter isotopes to produce an “age” of the material in question.

Radiometric dating is the principal method used to produce ages of rocks, meteorites, and other geological features thought to be millions to billions of years old. This includes the ages of fossilized life forms or the supposed 4.56-billion-year age of the earth. These radiometric dating methods were used to establish the geologic timescale. The best-known techniques are radiocarbon dating, potassium-argon dating, and uranium-lead dating. Different methods of radiometric dating vary in the timescale over which they are supposedly accurate and the materials to which they can be applied.

Any serious Bible student will thus immediately understand how these ages of millions–billions of years clash with the approximate 6000-year biblical timescale derived from the genealogies of Scripture, especially in Genesis 1–11 and supported by Exodus 20:11. God’s eyewitness testimony is the earth’s “birth certificate” that provides its true age, so all radiometric dates of earth and lunar rocks and meteorites are thus erroneous.

The aim of research papers in the Answers Research Journal (ARJ) is to explore and critique the various radiometric dating methods to expose their flaws because of the erroneous assumptions on which they are built. Additionally, some papers build models for understanding how orders-of-magnitude accelerated radioactive decay during the Flood cataclysm can account for the grossly older ages in the correct systematic order in the geologic record.


ISSN: 1937-9056 Copyright © Answers in Genesis, Inc.