How can the earth be millions of yrs old and we can't find a tree over 10K yrs old?

Originally posted by mr10k

pando was discussed here on ATS last year....

Here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

And my boy Badmedia made the same point OT did....timewarp timewarp timewarp

OK lets clear a few things up....

The Flood happened, a result of the melting of the ice-caps during the last Ice-Age.

Sea levels rose 3-400 feet.

Lots of trees, plants and animals died.

Ok, now we have that little (non-biblical) lesson out of the way, lets have a look at the OP's original claim.

My first question is: Where did the amber come from that contains mosquitoes and other creepy-crawlies that are dated in the millions of years?

What makes you think that the flooding caused by the last ice age did not destroy or bury much of the evidence you claim doesn't exist?

How do you reconcile the fact that petrified wood dating millions of years back, plus things like perfectly preserved mangrove forests found underneath the Great Barrier Reef that date to before the last Ice age?

I have plenty more questions, but lets see how you do with these for starters. Please try to remain rooted in the scientific rather than the airy-fairy though.

Sorry if someone else has already said, but 10,000 years ago was around the end of the last ice age - if it was global as a lot of evidence suggests, then the global melt would have had to happen before trees and plants etc... could start growing again (obviously) which ties in perfectly with your Q

maybe i am the one to say it.

you can't find 1, million year old tree?

i wonder why?

Hey OT!

While I am not an expert in this area at all... Aren't all these ancient trees in our gas tanks?

Maybe you're looking at this from a different perspective than me... I don't say "Why is there only one tree this ancient left?"... I say "How utterly amazing it is that this one tree has managed to live this long." I mean, storms, ice, fires, the coming of man... What a miracle is that the old guy is still standing!

Us old folks need to look out for one another you know! So give this amazing tree its props!

~Heff

The Earth isn't millions of years old. Nobody is saying that it is millions of years old.

We're saying that it is billions of years old.

Oh, and here are three clonal trees that are older than 10,000 years old...though I didn't read through thread and others might have brought them up.

Pando
Jurupa Oak
King Clone

3 trees, older than 10,000 years.

i dont really understand what you are getting. Are you saying becuase the worlds oldest tree is 10k years old then the planet must be the same. How about the The Pando aspen 80k years old and possibly a lot older

www.dailygalaxy.com...

Now looking at the oldest living thing and saying the earth is the same age does not have much logic. Unless you decide to call the earth a living thing. Which it is.
Having studyed glacial and preglacial soil sample i can assure you the earth is a lot older the 10k. Where did you get such a figure...

kx

Originally posted by OldThinker
I don't know how old the earth is...neither do you friend.

The exact age? You are correct. But any logical and scientific count well exceeds 10,000

Originally posted by OldThinker
But can't you skeptics just admit this is puzzling to your worldview?

It is not the least bit puzzling.

Originally posted by OldThinker
I mean many of those that believe in a young earth put it around 10K years old...right in line with the age of this tree in Sweden...

What do these believers base the earths age on? How could this be "right in line" with the age of this tree in Sweden when you your self stated above: "I don't know how old the earth is"

Originally posted by OldThinker
could it be something as simple as the earth wasn't here then?

Where would it have gone?

Originally posted by scooterstrats
Not here to argue at all. I am having trouble posting links currently.....but, has nobody ever heard of Meadowcroft? Just really curious as it hasnt been mentioned. Would link if I can figure out how.

Steelers fan huh?

Back to OP, it appears the "science" of dating (ie meadowcroft) may be in question...again I'm no scientist..enjoy the read...

Possible contaminating agents are many and varied, as described above. Unless there are specific conditions which warrant specialized pretreatment, most laboratories process samples with acid and alkali washes. While this standard pretreatment is usually effective in removing modern contaminants, it may not do so for intrusive materials deposited much earlier. The well-known controversy over the earliest date (pre-10,000 B.C.) from Meadowcroft rockshelter in Pennsylvania hinges on an alleged gradual contamination of the charcoal samples through the injection of dead carbon in the form of coal particles or of organic solubles (Haynes 1980; Dincauze 1981), in spite of the fact that the cave is dry and its earliest cultural layer is well sealed. One of the proponents of contamination, C. Vance Haynes, was a pioneer of chemical pretreatment methods to remove plant debris from C-14 samples. He points out that the dated samples from Meadowcroft are not pure charcoal but "mixtures of finely divided carbon and carbonaceous matter with... a significant percentage of soluble organic matter" (1980:583). Humate extractions were dated some 10,000 years earlier than the residual material in one sample. Cook (1964) investigated apparent charcoal samples from archaeological sites using chemical procedures similar to but stronger than those of C-14 pretreatment, and concluded that many were decayed wood with "considerable amounts of organic matter produced by micro-organisms through past centuries." Others were partially burned (carmelized) wood with considerable infiltration of organic matter.

Another famous early man site in North America, the Old Crow site in the Yukon territory of Canada, also yielded very misleading C-14 results according to a recent study by Nelson (1986). Bone tools from the site had given a date of around 27,000 years B.P. These tools were made of caribou ribs, and Nelson found that the outer portions of the bone had exchanged carbon with the air and ground water. A sample taken from the innermost portion of the bone yielded an age of 1,350 years. As in the Meadowcraft samples, the dating of progressive fractions revealed discrepancies not apparent when the samples were subjected to traditional pretreatment and dated.

My own investigation of a "charcoal" sample dated 8500 BP from a geological context in Hong Kong led to uncertainties inherent in the dates on wood samples from certain depositional environments. The wood was taken from a marine clay 18m. Below sea level; it was jet black as if charred. Laboratory examination (Grisack 1985) revealed however that the cellulose structure did not exhibit the morphological changes associated with charring. Scanning electron microscope study revealed that the pore spaces of the cellulose were almost completely filled. The analytical spectrometer showed the main inorganic substances present were sulfur and iron, with lesser amounts of silicon, aluminium, calcium and sodium. Treatment with 50% hydrochloric acid was effective in removing inorganic materials, but under the SEM the pore spaces remained as occluded with debris as before. The sample also showed very little birefringence under polarized light, whereas wood fibers should be brightly birefringent. "The explanation that suggests itself is that some organic type material has slowly, over a long period of time, been filtering into the lumens of the wood and possibly the cell walls as well, displacing the cellulose or carbon" (Grisack 1985:3). In the opinion of F.H. Kendall, Director of the: Radioisotope Unit at the University of Hong Kong, standard C-14 pretreatment of wood and charcoal samples would not succeed in removing organic material translocated into the lumens and cell walls of the cellulose (personal communication 1985).

It is clear that "more research on dating technology needs to be conducted so that the reliability of dates can be assessed" (Stanford 1982:205). MacDonald(1983:100, 108) believes that the absorption of humates from ground water may have seriously contaminated many dates from the northeastern US with its particularly acidic soils:

"The critical question that demands immediate attention is that of humic acid contamination of C-14 dates, since there is growing evidence that current lab pretreatments are inadequate and that we are confounded by dates that may in some cases be too old and in other cases too young ..."

In sum, it should be obvious to the non-specialist, as it is to most archaeologists and radiocarbon scientists, that possible contamination always represents an element of uncertainty which no amount of laboratory pretreatment or measurement can totally efface. Clusters of congruent dates on different materials, replicated at different sites, eventually allow for a reliable radio-carbon chronology to be established, but there is, quite simply, no possibility of an absolute date on a single sample or artifact."

more: www.accuracyingenesis.com...

I dunno, but thx for asking

Originally posted by cluckerspud

Originally posted by OldThinker
I mean many of those that believe in a young earth put it around 10K years old...right in line with the age of this tree in Sweden...

What do these believers base the earths age on? How could this be "right in line" with the age of this tree in Sweden when you your self stated above: "I don't know how old the earth is"

=================

Simple, I was speaking of "those", you know 3rd party?

There are hundreds of "believer" sites/arguments out there, let's take a non-believers version ok?

Source: By Anti-Creationist, William D. Stansfield
Prof. Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University

Quotes:

Water From Volcanoes
"It has been estimated that seventy volcanoes the size of Mexico's Paricutin producing 0.001 cubic mile of water per year for 4.5 billion years of earth's history could account for the 315 cubic miles of water in the oceans today. There are now approximately 600 active volcanoes and about 10,000 dormant ones. Six hundred volcanoes comparable to Paricutin could account for the present oceans in approximately 0.5 billion years."


Uranium In the Oceans
"Uranium salts presently appear to be accumulating in the oceans at about 100 times the rate of their loss. It is estimated that 60,000,000,000 grams of uranium is added to the oceans annually. Under uniformitarian rules, the total concentration of uranium salts of the oceans (estimated at less than 1E+17 grams) could be accumulated in less than one million years.


Helium In the Atmosphere
"The atmospheric content of helium-4 (the most abundant isotope of helium) has accumulated from the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium in the earth's crust and oceans, from nuclear reactions caused by cosmic rays, and from the sun. If the present rate of accumulation has been constant throughout four billion years of the earth's history, there should be thirty times as much helium in our present atmosphere as is presently there."


Meteoric Dust In Strata
"One estimate of meteoric dust settling to earth places it at 14.3 million tons annually. If this rate has been constant throughout five billion years of geologic history, one might expect over fifty feet of meteorite dust to have settled all over the surface of the earth. ... The average meteorite contains about three hundred times more nickel than the average earth rock."


Meteorites In Strata
"No meteorites have been found in the geological column."


Lava In The Crust
"It has been estimated that four volcanoes spewing lava at the rate observed for Paricutin and continuing for five billion years could almost account for the volume of the continental crusts. The Colombian plateau of northwestern United States (covering 200,000 square miles) was produced by a gigantic lava flow several thousands of feet deep. The Canadian shield and other extensive lava flows indicate that volcanic activity has indeed followed an accelerated tempo in the past. The fact that only a small percentage of crystal rocks are recognizably lavas...."


Pressure In Oil Reservoirs
"Some geologist find it difficult to understand how the great pressures found in some oil wells could be retained over millions of years."


Human Population Dynamics
"If humanity is really about 2.5 million years old (as claimed by Dr. Louis Leakey), creationist calculate from conservative population estimates (2.4 children per family, average generation and life span of forty-three years) that the world population would have grown from a single family to 10 to the 2700th power of people over one million years. The present world population is about 2x10 to the 9th power, an infinitesimal part of the 10 to the 2700th power."


Radiocarbon In Atmosphere
"It now appears that the C14 decay rate in living organisms is about 30 per cent less than its production rate in the upper atmosphere. Since the amount of C14 is now increasing in the atmosphere, it may be assumed that the quantity of C14 was even lower in the past than at the present. This condition would lead to abnormally low C14/C12 ratios for the older fossils. Such a fossil would be interpreted as being much older than it really is. ... Creationists argue that since C14 has not yet reached its equilibrium rate, the age of the atmosphere must be less than 20,000 years old."


Dr. Stansfield's "Answer":
"By this methodology, creationists stand guilty of the "crime" they ascribe to evolutionists, namely uniformitarianism. All the above methods for dating the age of the earth, its various strata, and its fossils are questionable, because the rates are likely to have fluctuated widely over earth history. A method that appears to have much greater reliability for determining absolute ages of rocks is that of radiometric dating."


But He Acknowledges:
"If we assume that (1) a rock contained no Pb206 when it was formed, (2) all Pb206 now in the rock was produced by radioactive decay of U238, (3) the rate of decay has been constant, (4) there has been no differential leaching by water of either element, and (5) no U238 has been transported into the rock from another source, then we might expect our estimate of age to be fairly accurate. Each assumption is a potential variable, the magnitude of which can seldom be ascertained. In cases where the daughter product is a gas, as in the decay of potassium (K40) to the gas argon (Ar 40) it is essential that none of the gas escapes from the rock over long periods of time.


Stanfield's Conclusion:
It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological 'clock."' SCIENCE OF EVOLUTION, pp. 80-84.

More: www.bible.ca...

Originally posted by fooks
maybe i am the one to say it.

you can't find 1, million year old tree?

i wonder why?

fooks, fair question!

OT

reply to post by OldThinker


Animals need trees for oxygen...animals were around before 10,000 years ago...Some dinosaurs were plant eaters...This thread has no basis, there's been a few definitive responses already but you ignore them and keep this thread going regardless..If I was mod I would of just PM'd you some common-sense, and deleted this thread from the get-go.

well for trees to be preseved takes special conditions,imagine alot of th emud, and gunk around the world is reemnants of our past anyway

reply to post by OldThinker


My friend you are a very smart man but your post is nothing but fishing for support of something you know already the answer.

The beautiful trees we know today are not the same flora that this planet had 1 million years ago.

You know it doesn't take a genius to guess that one.

reply to post by OldThinker


Very good name for you...oddthinker. What grade are you in? Check out a little about history and science. Trees as we know them could not exist in the climate of the earth 10,000 years ago. Do you think the carbon dating work we have now is just BS?

Fair point o/p, but they can find 265,000,000 yr old fossils...

Originally posted by marg6043
reply to post by OldThinker

 

My friend you are a very smart man but your post is nothing but fishing for support or something you know already the answer.

The beautiful trees we know today are not the same flora that this planet had 1 million years ago.

You know it doesn't take a genius to guess that one.

Shhh....

I just wish one honest skeptic would say, "you know, that is an interesting question, statistically you would have thought there would have been at least a few more than one (1) living tree older than 10K, after all there are 100's of millions of them...and life has been here "millions" of years?

...it was just a simple question...all their panicing is pointless...

You know OT is about getting folks to think outside their paradigm...they usually get mad/frustrated at first...but come around and either sign up as a friend/foe...or talk about my good heart, down the road after reading a few of my threads

Originally posted by union_jack
Fair point o/p, but they can find 265,000,000 yr old fossils...

Now that's a great post!!!!

Balance...ahhh

The "fossils" sugject we'll save for another thread....

Others take notice of my UAW brother here

Originally posted by amc621
reply to post by OldThinker

 

Very good name for you...oddthinker. What grade are you in? Check out a little about history and science. Trees as we know them could not exist in the climate of the earth 10,000 years ago. Do you think the carbon dating work we have now is just BS?

The grade of life

You are new to ATS, there's a link to a poster's PROFILE...check it out...maybe you could learn something.

Carbon dating? Yep i posted aboput it earlier on this page...research bro

reply to post by OldThinker


You old devil you, I love when you bring such controversial questions, truly I wonder how earth would have looked like 1 million years ago, as everything was bigger and greener than today.

I believe we still have some ferns in rain forest that are from the dinosaurs period still surviving.

Forest didn't grew until about 1 million years ago as the earth was covered by water, steam then by ice, one of the reasons is hard to find any sign of trees unless they are fossils is due to the fact that the last ice age wasn't over until 10,000 years ago, that is why we can only see plants and vegetation if found in fossil form

After the ice age the forests has been constantly changing and when a forest die the new growths takes the nutrients of the death forest making hardly impossible to find any prof of a prior forest and that has been happening for 10,000 years.

As the climate change so the forest. Now we are going to witness the change of winters in the US and all over the worth as winter is starting to come later and end later in the season, truly amazing thing to witness in a life time.