>>I have met and listened to Dr. Austin. He has published peer reviewed articles and although a creationist, has many geologist friends who are not creationists but appreciate some of his work in the grand canyon and at mount St. helens etc.. which are causing many to reconsider uniformitarian ideas."<<

This is more B.S. Austin is a quack and any real geologist would recognize this fact.

As far as I can tell he has ONE peer reviewed article which is basically a piece of scientific shit as described here:

www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr...l#summary

Here is the summary from this article:

"The ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project does not strike a telling blow against the reliability of isochron dating. The conditions which caused the "false isochron" in this case are fairly well-understood, and easy to avoid by proper sample selection. In fact, the resulting age in this case may well be meaningful and accurate. The problem is not the age itself but rather Austin's sleight-of-hand in trying to pass off the result as necessarily the age of the flows rather than a minimum age of their source.

The attempt to abuse the meaning of a single contrived date -- which was produced only by a sample selection geared to dating a different event, and only for samples whose results were known by Austin in advance -- says a lot more about the level of competence or honesty in this creation "science" research program, than it says about the validity of isochron dating methods.

Even if given credit for discovering this case (which he clearly doesn't deserve, as his use of Leeman's data proves), Austin has only managed to "call into question" a particular sampling technique. However, this sampling technique was known by mainstream geologists to behave in this manner long before Austin published on the topic, and this behavior is often intentionally used by geologists. Austin was aware of this, as his 1988 reference to Faure shows.
Response to Criticisms

I recently received a critique of this FAQ. Unfortunately, it was submitted anonymously and it didn't address the key issues above. Since I couldn't get permission to reproduce the claims verbatim, I will summarize the creationist claims, and respond to them here. I would recommend that future prospective critics attempt to deal directly and explicitly with the three items in the "criticisms" section above.

* Austin took care to ensure that the samples were cogenetic by selecting lava flows of only Hawaiite basalt, in the same area, which occurred by mainstream reckoning within the last few million years.

The "type" of rock is not sufficient to establish the samples being cogenetic. Since the stratigraphic evidence indicates that the flows did not all occur at the same time, the case could only be made by other isotopic analysis such as taking internal isochrons of the individual flows. That data is lacking from Austin's published works.

Besides, this line of argument does not address the fact that the result is a known and expected behavior of isochrons. As discussed above, whole-rock samples of multiple flows yields the time since their common source was isotopically homogeneous. It could also be the age of the flows, but it does not have to be. If it is not the flows' age, that is not a "problem" with isochron dating, and it is not relevant to the large number of Rb/Sr isochrons which were computed from mineral separations of a single object.

* Austin's claims cannot be misleading because he presented this data at a GSA (Geological Society of America) conference and they would not have allowed a dishonest presentation.

At the GSA meeting, Austin discussed the inheritance of a mantle age. He didn't pretend that the age of the flows was the expected result, and he didn't make the false claim that his result was sufficient to call all isochron dating into question. This is a transparent attempt to place a GSA "seal of approval" on Austin's unsupportable Impact claims. (In my opinion, the anonymous critic is engaging in a little sleight-of-hand of his own.)

* An Impact article is so short that only a single point can be made, therefore Austin should be excused for a misleading or inaccurate appearance to his statements which might simply be a result of brevity. Those wishing the full argument should look to Austin's book instead.

The length of the medium is not a legitimate excuse for a blatant falsehood (the claim that Austin set out to "test" Rb/Sr dating) or for the shenanigans involving the sampling technique versus the expected meaning of the resulting age. Further, there is no material in Austin's book which legitimizes the false and misleading claims in his Impact article.

In addition, the Impact articles (which are free and available online) receive much wider distribution than Austin's book (which costs $20). At least a dozen creationists arguing against isotope geology have referred me to the Impact articles, and not a single one of them had ever looked at the book. The claims in Impact are all that most creationists ever see. Therefore they must be accurate on their own."

finally, it appears that much of your argument about oxygen deficient waters, matts preserving the fish from decay etc etc etc are all simply more of your just-so story Rene. There are NO modern analogues for these contentions! Note the notes of these debate posted online:

Refuting Babinski: Sedimentation Notes - Weblink

Sedimentation/Geology Notes:



(Written and sent to E. Babinski 11-7-04)







You stated previously regarding sedimentation:







“…you can shake up dirt in a jar and get layers, since the pebbles settle first, then the sand, then the fine clay particles settle out on top last of all. But in the actual geological record the most dense boulders do not lie at the bottom of the geological record, and the top of the geological layer is not formed of shale (clay that has turned to stone). In fact changes in density of the rock distributed in layers above or below one another change all the time.”







This is in error. Despite the fact that you provide no examples, I will supply one of my own. In: “Fusion; n’81; Mai-Juin 2000, Editions Alcuin (Paris)”; Berthault et al explain:







“… experiments on segregation of eleven heterogeneous mixtures of sand sized quartz, limestone and coal demonstrate that through lateral motion, the fine particles fall between the interstices of the rolling course particles. Course particles gradually roll on top of fines and microscale sorting is obtained. Microscale segregation similar to lamination is observed on plane surfaces, as well as under continuous settling in columns filled with either air or water… Under a steady uniform flow and plane bed with sediment motion, the coarse particles of the mixture rill on a laminated bed of mostly fine particles. In non-uniform flow, the velocity decreases caused by a tail-gate induces the formation of a stratum of coarse particles propagating in the downstream direction. On top of this cross stratified bed, fine particles settle through the moving bed layer of rolling coarse particles and form a near horizontally laminated topset stratum of finer particles…Superposed strata are not therefore necessarily identical to successive sedimentary layers….







“{Our experiments} show that in the presence of a current, strata in a sequence are not successive. Change of orientation in stratification, or erosion surfaces between facies of the same sequence, may not necessarily indicate the existence of a halt in sedimentation, and can result from a variation in the velocity of an uninterrupted current. Bed plane partings separating facies or sequences can result from desiccation following the withdrawal of water.”








In other words, denser particles do not necessarily need to be “at the bottom” of a stratigraphic sequence. Additionally, this sort of stratification occurs even up to a 40 degree angle, thus showing that tilt in sediments need not be due to tectonic movements. And, considering that we are speaking about a massive global catastrophe, what would you expect to find? Are angular unconformities the result of uniformitarian erosion, or are they the result of the washing away of certain planes of unconsolidated sediment by waves, only to be blanketed by a redeposition of further unconsolidated or otherwise stratified sediments on top of it (or other various sized debris for that matter)? Erosion, sediment transport, deposition, new sediment production, volcanism, tectonism, turbidites, extra-terrestrial impacts, sea-level changes… Perhaps these should all be factors to consider, if we are honestly evaluating *all* of the facts of geology…..







“…paleohydraulic conditions must be determined. These would be minimum conditions, because it is possible that certain cycles, resulting from mountain uplift causing a significant geographical displacement of the poles, attained an amplitude beyond anything comparable today. {note: Regarding magnetic reversals, see “Principle of least astonishment {Rapid Reversals of earth’s Magnetic Field}”; CEN Tech J. 9(2):138-139, 1995: www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3397.asp , see also: www.answersingenesis.org/creat...ic.asp } Knowledge of paleohydraulic conditions should help to determine better the paleo-ecological zones (depth of site) of the species which, as with the sediments, were dragged along by the currents. It might also provide a better explanation of the layerings of fossil zones in the sediments of sedimentary basins.” (Berthault et al; Ibid)







Also, notice also that in my first private email correspondence to you (as of May, 2004), I stated, after showing you the sedimentation photographic evidence and the accompanying technical articles from Berthault et al, that:







“While this does not scientifically prove a Flood Geology (as science cannot repeat, observe, or measure those unobserved past events of history), it does constitute strong observable evidence that is contra to exclusive uniformitarian interpretations of geology.”







Notice that I said that it doesn’t prove the proposed hypothesis. I stated that it only lends strong support for it, and constitutes strong negative evidence to the contra stance taken by advocates of uniformitarianism. Interestingly enough, your own responses on the subject exhibit a rather dogmatic tone concerning such things, pressing hard that uniformitarian *interpretations* of stratigraphy (with the attendant evolutionary *interpretations* of biostratigraphic sequencing of Cetacean fossils within those layers) is on par with observable, repeatable, measurable, operational scientific fact. I find this stance rather ironic, considering that such things as, for instance, the proposed long age varve model for the Green River Formation, has absolutely no modern analogue to observe or compare it with:







“…there is no modem lacustrine analogue to a permanently stratified lake that could have produced oil shale and trona.”







- Desborough, G.A., A Biogenic-Chemical Stratified Lake Model for the origin of oil shale of the Green River Formation: an alternative to the Playa-Lake Model, Geological Society of America Bulletin 89:961–971, 1978; Carroll, A.R. and Bohacs, K.M., Stratigraphic classification of ancient lakes: balancing tectonic and climate controls, Geology 27(2):99–102, 1999; p. 99: This discusses how geologists usually adopt ‘an ad hoc approach to interpreting ancient successions ... whereby each occurrence is treated as unique’.”



(www.answersingenesis.org/home/...sp#r16 )







It would seem that the present can only supply us with a key to the past when one accepts faithfully certain starting point assumptions. In this case, the focal point of belief would be uniformitarianism. But as is exampled above, when all of the appreciable facts are considered, it becomes apparent that the unobservable starting points that are integral parts of the uniformitarian model don’t even comport over to what we actually observe in nature.







This is why I was emphatic in your addressing the sedimentation question via the articles I sent you. In attempting to address various points concerning sedimentology, you seem to have overlooked the technical material on the discussion. I would suggest that you consult this material before making any further comments.

………………………………
Notes:


1. Take the Green River Formation for instance. If "annual layers" can build up around the rotting carcasses of fish with coprolites extricated from their bodies, as well as around hollow boned Presbyornis specimens, then there is a serious problem with interpreting those layers as being annually deposited. And, following this, the sort of models invoked by uniformitarian thinking regarding these formations do not involve modern analogues:



"In addition to its well-preserved fossil fish, the Green River Formation is famous for its trona and oil shale. As one researcher ponders, ‘there is no modern lacustrine analogue to a permanently stratified lake that could produce oil shale and trona’.(16) "



“A model based on seasonal deposition, as stated by the varve theory, does not appear to pertain to the Fossil Lake sediments.”



- Buchheim, H.P. and Benton, R., The Dynamics of Fossil Lake, National Park Service, Corvallis, Oregon, pp. 14–15, 1981.



“Part of the reason the varve theory has been abandoned is the existence of fossils of bottom-feeding catfish and their abundant faeces. Fossils of other fish also seem to be out of their preferred habitats as judged by the sediments in which they occur. Chemically, the high Mg/Ca ratios of the oil shale were also problematical for the stratified lake model. However, the most difficult observations to incorporate into the model were from drill cores from different locations in the Green River Formation. In one case there was a 32% increase in the number and the corresponding thickness of the laminae between time synchronous events (i.e. volcanic ash layers) in the core samples.”-“Fish preservation, fish coprolites in the Green River Formation”; D.A. Woolley, TJ 15(1):105-11,2001: www.answersingenesis.org/home/...er.asp



"‘. . . fossil catfish are distributed in the Green River basin over an area of 16,000 km2 . . . The catfish range in length from 11 to 24 cm, with a mean of 18 cm. Preservation is excellent. In some specimens, even the skin and other soft parts, including the adipose fin, are well preserved.’(6)



‘During the early to mid-1970s enormous concentrations of Presbyornis [an extinct shorebird] have been discovered in the Green River Formation.’(7)



Experiments by scientists from the Chicago Natural History Museum have shown that fish carcasses lowered on to the muddy bottom of a marsh decay quite rapidly, even in oxygen-poor conditions. In these experiments, fish were placed in wire cages to protect them from scavengers, yet after only six-and-a-half days all the flesh had decayed and even the bones had become disconnected.(8)







The Presbyornis fossils are even more problematic. Birds have hollow bones that tend not to preserve well in the fossil record. How were these bird bones protected from scavenging and decay for thousands of years until a sufficient number of the fine annual layers had built up to bury them? ‘Enormous concentrations’ of bird bones are a clear indication that something is seriously wrong with the idea of slow accumulation. Instead, such fossils support the notion of rapid burial.







Creationist suspicions about the validity of the varve interpretation were confirmed in a study by two geologists published in 1988.(9) Near Kemmerer in Wyoming the Green River Formation contains two volcanic ash (tuff) layers, each about two to three centimetres thick.







A volcanic ash layer is an example of what geologists call an ‘event horizon’, because it is laid down essentially instantaneously by a single event, in this case a volcanic eruption. The two ash layers are separated by between 8.3 and 22.6 centimetres of shale layers.



If the standard interpretation is correct, then the number of shale layers between the ash layers should be the same throughout the Green River basin, since the number of years between the two eruptions would be the same.







However, the geologists found that the number of shale layers between the ash beds varied from 1160 to 1568, with the number of layers increasing by up to 35% from the basin centre to the basin margin! The investigators concluded that this was inconsistent with the idea of seasonal ‘varve’ deposition in a stagnant lake.







So how were the great thicknesses of finely laminated shale in the Green River Formation laid down? Creationist geologists need to investigate the issue more closely, but there seems to be great potential for developing a catastrophic model for the origin of these sediments. There is a large body of experimental and observational data that shows that varve-like sediments can build up very rapidly under catastrophic conditions.(10, 11, 12, 13, 14) For instance, in 1960 Hurricane Donna struck the coast of southern Florida and deposited a blanket of thinly-laminated lime-mud six inches thick.(15) Another example comes from a Swiss lake, in which up to five pairs of layers were found to build up in a single year, deposited by rapid underflows of turbid water.(16)







Given the right conditions, thinly-laminated muddy sediments can and do form by rapid sedimentation. Contrary to claims by old-earth proponents, long periods of time are not demanded."



www.answersingenesis.org/creat...er.asp



2. “Dr Humphreys also proposed a test for his model: magnetic reversals should be found in rocks known to have cooled in days or weeks. For example, in a thin lava flow, the outside would cool first, and record earth’s magnetic field in one direction; the inside would cool later, and record the field in another direction.


www.xanga.com/item.aspx

the more you talk about things you are supposedly and expert on and wish to "educate" me on, the more I wonder if all you have going is a big bluff Rene. I think you need to sit down with Steve Austin and have him straighten you out. I suggest you going on a rafting venture with Steve through the grand canyon. You will be surprised how much you "don't know", but thought you did.

>>Rene:"The varves in the Green River can be shown to vary in short term cycles that match the cycles we see in the sun."
"There are longer term patterns that match the earth's orbital variations about the sun.

Dan: "So you say, but you fail to cite any source in support of this contention."<<

The original article on the Green River (the one you are apparently afraid to read) discussed this and he provides references for everything in the article. Do you really need me to do it again and spoon feed you the information.

... I guess so: here might be a good place to start:

Crowley, Kevin D., and Claude E. Cuchon and Jaeyoung Rhi, 1986, "Climate Record in Varved Sediments of the Eocene Green River Formation," Journal of Geophysical Research, 91:D8:8637-8647.