Abstract

This essay attempts to show the reader that the first book of Moses, commonly called Genesis, is accurate. To prove its accuracy, archaeological evidence based on radiocarbon dating is used. We first model the variation of radiocarbon in the atmosphere assuming that scripture is accurate, then verify whether or not observed data fits this model.

1. Introduction to C14 dating

C14 is produced in the atmosphere when neutrons from cosmic rays bombard nitrogen.



N14 + n - > C14 + p
 (i)

C14 is oxidized instantly to C14O2. C14 being unstable, decays back to N14 with a half-life of 5700 years, releasing an electron.




C14 - > N14 + e
 (ii)

It is commonly assumed that the rate of C14 production is equal to the rate of decay, hence the percentage of C14 in the atmosphere remains constant. C12 and C13 are stable isotopes. The relative abundance of these isotopes in atmospheric CO2 is as follows:

C12 - 98.89 %
C13 - 1.11 %
C14 - 0.0000000001 %

As long as an animal / human is alive, the percentage of C14 present in his body is the same as that in the atmosphere. This is because the food that we eat ultimately comes from plants. And carbon present in plants is produced from atmospheric CO2 during photosynthesis.

However when a plant / animal / human dies, intake of carbon ceases. C12 and C13 being stable remains, but C14 decays. Thus by measuring the amount of C14 left, the age of a fossil is computed. This computation is based on the assumption that the amount of C14 present in the atmosphere has remained constant.

For example, if a fossil contains only half the percentage of C14 as that which is found in a living being, its age is computed to be 5700 years. But suppose that the amount of C14 present in the atmosphere 5700 years ago was half that of today, a fossil that died 5700 years ago would exhibit an apparent age of 11400 years.

The most commonly used convention in radiocarbon dating is the unit bp (before present). 'Present' referring to the year 1950 AD. Thus, when a radiocarbon lab reports an age of 10000 years bp, they are implying that the fossil would have died 10000 years before 1950 AD if the percentage of C14 present in the atmosphere 10000 years ago was the same as that in 1950 AD. However researchers know that this is not true, and have labored hard to calibrate the unit bp to true calendar years. This convention is necessary to avoid the confusion that would arise if different labs used different conventions.

Various reasons could have altered the percentage of C14 present in the atmosphere. The most commonly cited reason is combustion of petroleum and coal. Petroleum, being deficient of C14, releases huge amounts of C12O2 during combustion. Thus the percentage of C14 in atmospheric CO2 would have decreased because of the industrial revolution.

To overcome this problem, tree ring data is used for calibration. For example, measure the amount of C14 left in a ring produced 2000 years ago, and then compute the amount of C14 that was present then. The oldest tree alive today is 4767 years old and has been named 'Methuselah.'

The flaw associated with this method is the fact that the xylem in the bark is used to transport water from the roots and the phloem is used to transport the nutrients from the leaves downwards. Hence new intake of C14, C13 and C12 continue even after the ring is formed.

2 Has atmospheric C14 remained constant before the industrial revolution?

The production of C14 is governed by the probability that a neutron from cosmic rays can penetrate through the ozone layer and bombard a nitrogen molecule. Let us assume that the ozone layer and the amount of nitrogen has remained constant since the creation. Then the differential equation governing the production of C14 can be stated as



(iii)
The decay of C14 in the atmosphere is proportional to the amount C14O2 in the atmosphere and is characterized by



(iv)
Combining (iii) and (iv), we obtain



(v)
Equation (v) can be solved by making the substitution y=a-bC14. The solution is subject to the constraint that at the creation (t=0), there was no C14. This is because God created the sun on the 4th day, only after He created the earth, plants and the sky (Genesis 1). Based on this, we can say that formation of C14 only started on the 4th day. The variation of atmospheric C14 with time can then be analytically computed as



C14(t) = A ( 1 - e -b t )
 (vi)

where A=a/b and t is the time in years after the creation. The numerical value of b is 0.00012 years-1, corresponding to the half-life of C14 which is 5700 years. A is the amount of C14 that would be present in the atmosphere at steady state.

If the vast majority of scientists are correct in saying that the earth is a few billion years, then the term e-b t would be negligible and the assumption that the percentage of C14 has been a constant would be perfectly justifiable. But according to the literal interpretation of scripture, the age of the earth is only 6000 years, implying that steady state has not been reached.

To do Radiocarbon dating, we need to know the ratio of C14:Total Carbon content. Based on CO2 measurement from trapped air bubbles in ice cores, the total Carbon content in the atmosphere has been fairly constant from 1000AD to 1800AD (Refer Historical CO2 records from the Law Dome Ice Cores by Etheridge et al). Barnola et al wrote, "When the Vostok ice core data were compared with other ice core data (Delmas et al. 1980; Neftel et al. 1982) for the past 30,000 - 40,000 years, good agreement was found between the records: all show low CO2 values [~200 parts per million by volume (ppmv)] during the Last Glacial Maximum and increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations associated with the glacial-Holocene transition." (Refer Historical Carbon Dioxide record from the Vostok ice core).

The reader should take note that the Law Dome ice cores dating back to 1000 years were dated by counting the annual layers. But for the Vostok ice core that was dated to several thousand years, there were extrapolations involved. Fig 1 is an approximation of the variation of the ratio of C14:C12+C13+C14 in the atmosphere if my analysis is correct and that the total Carbon content in the atmosphere has been constant.

Fig 1: Ratio of C14 : C12 + C13 + C14 over the years


The reason why we can conclude that the percentage of C14 present in 1950 AD is the same as that of 200BC is because historical artifacts that are about 2200 years old have yielded radiocarbon dates that are very close to the estimated historical dates. One famous example is the dead sea scrolls. Another example is wood from a coffin from Egyptian Ptolemaic period. Its known age according to historians was 2280 years, it yielded a radiocarbon age of 2190 years! (Science Vol 113, pg 111, Feb 1951)

Fig 1 is just a simple approximation. I have drawn the figure as if the percentage of C14 decreased monotically since the industrial revolution. Nuclear bombs would have increased C14 and petroleum combustion would have increased C12. Fig 1 is merely to show a possible net effect.

3 Is Biblical Chronology accurate?

As for historical artifacts older than 3000 years, there is no reliable way to cross check radiocarbon dates. However, if we accept the analytical curve in Fig 1 to be accurate, we get some interesting results. For instance, the flood which occurred during Noah's time (2500BC). Note that from Fig 1, that around 4500 years ago, the amount of C14 present was only about half that of 1950 AD. This would cause an error of about 5700 years. Hence, if the book of Genesis is accurate, the flood would yield a radiocarbon date of 4500+5700 years. 10200 years bp.

The pleistocene extinction has been radiocarbon dated to 11000 years ago. The saber toothed tiger, the mammoths and the giant beaver disappeared at this time. Since this date coincides with Noah's flood, we can conclude that the flood had caused this extinction.

The ice-age could be another event related to the flood. While dating wood samples from a forest in Wisconsin, Dr Willard Libby wrote, "Apparently the spruce forest was submerged, pushed over, and buried under glacial drift by the last advancing ice sheet in this region." (Science Vol 113, pg 117, Feb 1951) All samples from this buried forest yielded about 11000 radiocarbon years.

When Dr Libby was awarded the nobel prize in 1960 for discovering radiocarbon dating, during the presentation speech it was mentioned, "It was proved that the last great glacial period in the northern parts of Europe and North America was simultaneous." Today it is accepted that even countries in the southern hemisphere, like New Zealand experienced the 'ice age' at exactly the same time.

The story of the Tower of Babel too becomes very interesting when compared with the light that radiocarbon dating sheds. This event occurred a few generations after the flood. Based on radiocarbon dating, archaeologists have concluded that civilization in Mesopotamia started about 10000 years ago, while civilizations in Europe, Egypt and India started about 7000 years ago. This indicates that there was a great dispersion a few generations after the flood.

And these civilizations all used bricks. This is simply because they had learnt how to make bricks shortly before the dispersion. Genesis 11:3 records: They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

Based on radiocarbon dating, archaeologists know very little about civilizations preceding 10000 years ago. This is because the flood wiped out most memory of them.

It is also interesting to note that every civilization even unto today have a week with 7 days. This is because the universe was created in 6 days plus 1 day rest.

4 A few notes about evolutionary time scales

One of the ways to disprove evolutionary time scales is using radiometry. (Darwin's 'Origin of Species' was published in 1859, a century before radiocarbon dating was discovered). Fossils that are supposed to be more than a hundred thousand years old have significant amount of radiocarbon remaining.

Every book on human evolution still maintain that rhodesian man (homo rhodesiensis) existed about 200000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating of animal bones buried together with Rhodesian Man in Broken Hill Cave, North Rhodesia, yielded an age greater than 9000 years. (Science Vol 144, pg 1000) These humans and animals perhaps thought that they could obtain shelter in this cave during the flood. In that same article, the authors wrote, "There is no known natural mechanism by which collagen (organic carbon in bone) may be altered to yield a false age." (Science Vol 144, pg 999)

In the summer of 1931, Gustav Riek excavated a newly discovered archaeological site in a small cave in southwestern Germany called Vogelherd. He and his team recovered several hominid bones which he dated to the Aurignacian (35000 years ago). These were recently carbon dated to be between 3,900 to 5,000 years old. (Refer Geotimes, 2004 September)

Another example is coal. According to the geologic column, it takes several hundred million years for coal to form. Coal samples yield a radiocarbon age of only several thousand years.

Even today, when you hear someone saying that they have found a dinosaur fossil 100 million years old, it is not because of radiocarbon dating, but simply because the geologic column says that dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. Radiocarbon dating on dinosaurs have yielded dates more than 10000 years. (Refer http://www.blacksheepbistro.com/dinodatingpage.htm)

If evolutionists are right in maintaining that life started a few billion years ago, 99% of fossils would yield a radiocarbon date of more than 10000 years. But according to radiocarbon databases, more than 90% of fossils have an age less than 10000 years. This is in spite of the fact that we have instruments that can measure ages up to 70000 bp. (Refer http://www.canadianarchaeology.ca/localc14/c14search.htm)

5 Is tree ring calibration valid?

Tree ring calibration is done by researchers to determine the variation of C14 levels over the years. If we make the assumption that the tree produces each ring annually, by counting we can determine the true age of formation of the ring. By radiocarbon dating, we obtain another date dependent on the amount of C14 present during the time of formation. In this way, by assuming that there has not been any exchange of the nutrients being transported in the capillaries of the old rings, we can calculate the amount of atmospheric C14 that was present during the formation of the ring. Thus, for tree rings to be used for calibration, an old ring should be a 'closed system' with respect to any chemical interaction. If there is any new intake of carbon or molecules being exchanged, this method cannot be used.

Here are a few reasons to believe that an old ring is not 'dead'.

i) Wood is porous, there are capillaries which are capable of transporting fluids. Consider the analogy of drinking milk from a straw. The straw may be 100 years old, but the milk may have been produced from a cow just a week ago. Thus dating the straw would not yield the age of the straw, but rather the age of the straw 'contaminated' by the milk. If someone wants to claim that tree ring calibration is a valid method, he should first prove that the capillaries in an old ring have not transported any fluids since their formation or that sap transported in wood does not become part of the wood. Is there any evidence that only the outermost layer function as the xylem and phloem? Fromm et al wrote, “Although only the latest two annual rings of the ringporous species are generally assumed to transport water, we found similar amounts of water and no tyloses in all rings of the oak sapwood” (Plant Physiology, October 2001, Vol. 127, pp. 416–425)

ii) The tree trunk grows vertically upwards. If all new intake of carbon is only deposited at the outermost ring, the tree would only be able to grow fatter and fatter without getting taller. The question we need to ask is: As the tree grows, are all nutrients transported without affecting the old rings? It is hard to imagine a scenario where the tree trunk gets taller if nutrients were only allowed to be transported at the outermost layer.

iii)The density of dry heartwood of an oak was found to be different from that of its sapwood. If rings ‘die’ after they are formed, why the variation of density as the rings age? (Plant Physiology, October 2001, Vol. 127, pp. 416–425)

I believe that certain types of trees can be used for calibration. A 14 year old spruce tree had dead heartwood in its center (Plant Physiology, October 2001, Vol. 127, pp. 416–425). If the ring ‘dies’ a few years after its formation, then that ring can be used for calibration. Secondly, if the density of dried wood varies only slightly as the tree ages, we would expect only slight contamination from newer carbon. So I think that tree ring calibration could be accurate if the correct type of trees are used.
 

6 The correct way of doing calibration

We do have an easy way to determine the variation of C14 over the years: Instead of tree ring calibration, use bones from a grave. Find a grave with bones of people who died 500 years ago, 1000 years ago and 1500 years ago. Measure the amount of C14 left, and calculate the amount of atmospheric C14 that was present 500, 1000 and 1500 years ago. As far as dead bones are concerned, there is no doubt that all metabolism has ceased. Bones too are not porous, implying that there would be much less contamination compared to wood.

7 Useful online references

http://www.c14dating.com/If you want to know more about radiocarbon dating.

http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?version=NIV&passage=all&language=english All the books of the bible are available here.

If you have any suggestions or useful information, please let me know. I am indebted to Eric Bart for his useful corrections. My email address is peaceharris@yahoo.com