Radiometric Dating continued

RADIOCHEMIST

There are many independent checks on radiometric dating that put
the techniques beyond doubt. Here is a link to an interesting
list on these checks. By the way, it is important to note that
these independent checks preclude the possibility of radioactive
decay rates having changed in the last few million years, and
therefore conflict with Setterfields claims that the speed of light
has changed. Here is the link:
http://my.erinet.com/~jwoolf/rad_dat.html


RADIOCHEMIST

 

RADIOCHEMIST

Apparently the age of one creosote bush has been dated, probably by
C-14 dating, at 11,700 years. The following is a news item from
the Internet.

"Along an unremarkable stretch of desert on the
outskirts of town, just off a road named for singing
cowboy Gene Autry and tucked amid heaps of
garbage raked by winds strong enough to polish
granite, Jim Cornett thinks he's found the world's
oldest living thing.

Radiocarbon tests now under way may reveal the
unassuming creosote bush sprouted 11,000 or more
years ago, the scientist said, meaning it could
rival in age another creosote bush growing 50
miles away in the Mojave Desert.

The scraggly creosote pales in comparison to the
grandeur of well known ancients like the gnarled
bristlecone pine and majestic coast redwood.

Seemingly more dead than alive, the bush isn't big
and certainly isn't tall. It isn't even very bushy.

"They're not very exciting," Cornett admitted to a
visitor.

What the creosote bush is, Cornett is fairly certain,
is ancient.

If confirmed, the bush -- really a 38-foot,
arrow-straight line of genetically identical bushes
connected at the roots -- could trump another
creosote bush, dubbed "King Clone." That bush,
found in 1980 to be 11,700 years old, is considered
the oldest living thing on Earth.

"I don't think anyone ever thought a bush would be
that old," said Cornett, curator of natural science at
the Palm Springs Desert Museum.

In a species that reproduces itself through cloning,
any individual is theoretically as old as the species.
Take King's Holly, a rare Tasmanian plant. In 1996,
scientists found fossil remains of the plant near the
holly's only known population.

The fossils were found to be 43,000 years old,
suggesting the existing plants had grown in that
location for at least that long.

A box huckleberry colony in Pennsylvania, spread
over some 10 square miles, is believed to date back
as far as 13,000 years.

In the case of King Clone and the bush now being
studied, scientists traced one bush, not a population
-- back in time.

University of California, Riverside botanist Frank
Vasek discovered King Clone. Over the millennia, it
had grown outward into a large ring.

Vasek, now retired, said he doubted there were any
creosotes older than King Clone.

"The way human activity is devastating the area, it is
unlikely they would survive that onslaught," Vasek
said.

Tom Van Devender, senior research scientist at the
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Ariz.,
said the newly found bush could well be older than
King Clone. And he doesn't believe King Clone is
as old as scientists claim. He believes it is closer to
7,500 years old or younger. That's still older than
the oldest bristlecone by several thousand years.

Cornett's bush grows differently than the ringlike
King Clone, thanks, he said, to the merciless winds
that howl through the northern outskirts of Palm
Springs.

There, the wind is strong enough to smooth the
granite boulders that pepper the garbage-strewn
landscape and drive the blades of hundreds of
power-generating windmills in the area. It also gives
the creosote bush its streamlined shape.

On this patch of federal land, the bush struggles with
the wind to grow outward, but none of the sprouts
that grow from roots fanning out under the coarse
sand survive -- save those lucky enough to come up
behind the windbreak formed by the original plant.

"Every time it puts out a sprout to the side, it gets
obliterated," Cornett said.

Over the centuries, the bush has formed a long line
of clones. When the lead bush dies, it leaves the
second in the chain to take the brunt of the wind.

Cornett and his colleagues first spotted the linear
bush while flying over the northern outskirts of Palm
Springs. It stuck out like a sore thumb.

The root samples being tested by Cornett came
from beneath the soil upwind of the living bush, and
presumably belonged to a genetically identical
predecessor that died thousands of years ago. The
trace remains of roots linking the living and dead
portions of the bush support that hypothesis,
Cornett said.

"This is a spectacular claim, but Cornett is a well
respected scientist and I would say run with it," said
Richard Felger, executive director of the Drylands
Institute in Tucson, Ariz.

The creosote bush, Larrea tridentata, is the hallmark
perennial of the warm deserts of North and South
America. When crushed, or after a rainfall, its small,
waxy leaves give off the pungent, petroleumlike
smell that gives it its name."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/01/30/state1509EST7459.DTL


RADIOCHEMIST

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: Administrator ]