Vance Nelson’s sample was decontaminated prior to testing. Hadrosaur bone tested C14 age of 25,000 ybp roughly.
Define deep time. At what age does deep time start?
So older than the YEC timeline allows
Wait. Vance Nelson of Ian Juby fame?
I need sources. Can’t find these anywhere
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That supports the YEC claim of a 6000 year old Earth exactly…how?
C14 dating is only good back to about 60K years with pristine samples. The practical limit is 45K-50K years.
Why don’t any YECs date pieces of coal they can find pretty much anywhere? All coal should date to younger than 6000 years, right?
Which ones have you exhaustively checked for accuracy?
FYI this claim is incorrect. The 2016 Mori et al paper A New Arctic Hadrosaurid from the Prince Creek Formation (Lower Maastrichtian) of Northern Alaska did make the statement the bones from the Liscomb Bone Bed (LBB) were unpermineralized but he did not document this, merely cited 2010 papers on the LBB from Gangloff and Fiorillo. The problem is the 2010 papers did not say the LBB finds were unpermineralized - the 2010 papers documented just the opposite. It is not clear why Mori et al paper made the claim it did but it is not supported.
Here is a full account
Recently Mori et al. (2016) published a paper describing a new taxon of hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Prince Creek Formation of the North Slope Alaska, a rock unit that has recently proven to be a productive source of scientific insights into the workings of an ancient Arctic terrestrial ecosystem (Fiorillo and Gangloff 2001; Gangloff et al. 2005; Fiorillo et al. 2009, 2010; Gangloff and Fiorillo 2010; Flaig et al. 2011, 2013, 2014; Fiorillo and Tykoski 2012, 2014). Although thorough testing of the systematics of this proposed taxon will occur over the next few years, one statement in the Mori et al. (2016) paper warrants comment now. In their section on “Geologic setting and taxonomic composition”, the authors state “The hadrosaurid remains are almost entirely disarticulated, show little evidence of weathering, predation, or trampling and are typically uncrushed and unpermineralized.” As evidence for this statement, the authors cite two papers: Gangloff and Fiorillo (2010) and Fiorillo et al. (2010). These two papers discuss the taphonomy and depositional setting of the Liscomb Bonebed, which is the source of the materials used by Mori et al. (2016).
It is puzzling that Mori et al. (2016) state the bones are “typically uncrushed and unpermineralized” because these bones are indeed permineralized. As stated by Gangloff and Fiorillo (2010: 300) there is common to abundant occurrence of minerals such as pyrite, calcite, and chalcedony (microcrystalline quartz) within the dinosaur bones collected. All of these minerals are commonly introduced during the permineralization process. Further, Gangloff and Fiorillo (2010) discussed fractures of bones resulting from freezethaw dynamics present along boundaries of permafrost, and the paper included figures illustrating the degree of crushing in some of the bones (2010: fig. 5C, D). The bones from the Liscomb Bonebed are remarkable but they are indeed fossilized and they are indeed permineralized. Fiorillo et al. (2010), did not focus on any of the mineralogical aspects of bone preservation so the use of this paper in support of Mori et al.'s (2016) claim is baffling. As a co-author of the two papers that are being misused, several colleagues have now contacted me requesting clarification on the state of fossilization of dinosaur bones from northern Alaska. The Mori et al. (2016) paper serves as a reminder that scientists are not only obligated to provide the supporting data for their conclusions, they are also obligated to cite their sources accurately.
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I’m sorry, but this is just total cluelessness about the most basic, fundamental rules and principles of how measurement in general works.
Every form of measurement – and carbon-14 dating is a form of measurement – will have sources of error. These MUST be fully accounted for before you draw any other conclusions from your measurements. This is not circular reasoning; it is simply standard practice. Every scientific study works this way.
And errors will NEVER be zero. Sure, you can design experiments to reduce sources of error, but you will never eliminate them entirely. This being the case, you must make attempts to quantify them.
Contamination is a legitimate and very real source of error in carbon-14 dating. The ways in which samples can be contaminated have been well-studied and a number of different possible contamination vectors have been identified. Contamination can occur in situ (for example, through groundwater), in collection, handling and storage, or in preparing the sample for analysis. Scientists have conducted experiments to determine how much contamination can be introduced with these processes, and they have found that the amount varies widely but can be as much as 0.5% modern carbon-14 (corresponding to an age of about 50,000 years). And that is when proper care and attention has been taken and all the best practices have been carefully followed. Sloppy handling or processing techniques can bump the figure up even higher.
Insisting that the amount of contamination in an ancient sample should be zero is simply not realistic. Seriously – that is one of the first things you learn in the very first half hour of the very first practical class in any A level physics course worth its salt. It’s measurement 101. It’s beginner stuff. I shouldn’t even have to tell you this.
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How could you possibly know this?
Anyway, which sample are you referring to? Nelson has written about several different dinosaur samples.[1][2] Unless you say which of Nelson’s samples you’re talking about, your claim is unverifiable.
[1] Including the “Triceratops” horn pieces studied by Anderson and Armitage. Those particular samples were most definitely contaminated, partly because it had been reworked into palaeocene deposits, but mostly because they had roots growing through them. They carbon dated them anyway.
[2] Another sample, written up by Nelson in CRSQ, was described as being purchased from a fossil dealer, and consequently the description includes no stratigraphic information or preservation history whatsoever. There’s no way to guarantee it wasn’t contaminated with younger material. Again, it was carbon-dated anyway.
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Try here.
Here’s what Nelson and Thomas say about this Hadrosaur fossil:
In 2013 we acquired two hadrosaurid bones from the Lance Formation from a professional fossil dealer in the U.S. with a large personal network of fossil excavators. These bones were observed to be in pristine condition, exactly as found, with no glue present or preservative applied. One hadrosaur caudal vertebra from an Edmontosaurus had a very similar color, condition, and lithologic context to the ICR 021 vertebra, and both are pictured in Figure 3. As a kind of sister to the Hell Creek Formation, the Lance Formation is assigned a conventional age of late Cretaceous. The other hadrosaurid bone procured was also from an Edmontosaurus, but is a foot phalanx. To provide the purest samples possible for carbon dating, both of these whole bones were split open and material was removed from the center of each using clean stainless steel instruments. The samples were collected directly onto tin foil. No silt or other material was observed within the center of these bones. Furthermore, the bones were not mineralized to any noticeable degree, as seen in Figure 3. The trabecular cavities were still open as in a modern bone of a similar kind, though the fossils exhibited a more brownish color in their interiors. We plotted in Figure 1 the reported carbon ages of these Edmontosaurus bone fossils at 25,550 ± 60 for the vertebra, and 32,420 ± 160 BP for the phalanx.
It came from a fossil dealer. The identity of the finder/excavator is not included, and may not be known. There’s no way to know where the fossil was excavated from, not even whether it was in an original deposit or had been exposed by erosion and reworked into more recent deposits with consequent association with younger material. There’s also no way of knowing whether or how the fossil dealer had cleaned or treated the material, and no way to know that the fossil is “exactly as found”.
BTW, I’m enjoying your series on AiG’s best 10 “evidences”.
Would you be the same James McKay I met in London at a BCSE gathering?
Thanks. I think that must be a namesake – I’ve never been to a BCSE gathering.
Interesting story about this. I wrote about this originally back in 2015 here:
It seems that my report actually wound up leading to Fiorillo’s remarks being published attacking Mori et al. Mori’s only real mistake is that his wording misleadingly implied he was getting his characterization from those prior sources, when in reality it was from his own firsthand investigation of the specimens. This is why Mori refused to back down to Fiorillo and stands by his characterization:
Contamination is a legitimate and very real source of error in carbon-14 dating.
Sounds like the charge of ‘contamination’ represents a built-in escape hatch for the researchers to simply toss out any dates that don’t comport with their established thinking. Convenient! Nelson states in his book Dire Dragons, in the section dealing with the hadrosaur specimen he had tested, that decontamination was performed prior to testing. Don’t know what more you want here, but in the end you would need to provide actual evidence that his specimen had been contaminated. You can’t just claim it was contaminated because of your pre-existing assumption that dinosaur specimens are millions of years old. His specimen dated to 25,000 years before present using the C14 method.
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No one is doing that. Why can’t you grasp the point being made?
Or maybe, contamination is a real phenomenon that has been studied extensively and you just can’t throw it out as so many YECs do. Read @jammycakes article on C14. Nice section on the “escape hatch” objection.
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Oh wow. A theologian said this in his coffee table book?
Send me papers! I need to see their methods section
And decontamination procedures don’t always work FYI. It is know this can add modern C14 as well. There have even been studies done where a sample was tested, then processed and then tested again, and guess what? Different levels on C14. You seem totally unfamiliar with an entire field of study and you simply hand wave it away by calling it a “rescue device”.
You still need to explain how does the 25,000 ybp date fit into the YEC timeline.
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You say this, but you are the one ‘hand waving’ here, because you have not provided any evidence of contamination. You are just throwing out the charge because the result doesn’t fit in your worldview.
You still need to explain how does the 25,000 ybp date fit into the YEC timeline.
The assumptions behind C14 dating are invalid. Creationists do not accept it as a workable dating method–especially not for anything coming from at or before the time of the Flood–because the assumptions involved ignore the Flood completely, and all the ways that that huge event would have thrown off the C14-C12 ratio, both ambient and in the resulting fossils. That’s all beside the point. The point is that results like these (and this is not the only example) serve to disconfirm deep time, even while granting the assumptions of the old earth scientists who use these methods.
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