Yeah, people should stop using buzz words. It's for the greater good ;[
lynx
beaten final fantasy III,IV,VI,VII,VIII,IX,X,X-2,XII,mystic quest, tacitcs, tactics advanced, crystal chronicles.
you only live once but if you do it right once is enough
my FF amvs
Someone just got whipped. Meow.
Bees use buzz words.
all from wikipedia
amount of K40 (0.0117%),
and for accuracy?
As the simulation of the processing of potassium-argon samples showed, the standard deviations for K-Ar dates are so large that resolution higher than about a million years is almost impossible to achieve. By comparison, radiocarbon dates seem almost as precise as a cesium clock! Potassium-argon dating is accurate from 4.3 billion years (the age of the Earth) to about 100,000 years before the present.
At 100,000 years, only 0.0053% of the potassium-40 in a rock would have decayed to argon-40, pushing the limits of present detection devices
0.0053%? you cant even pick that up without white noise
this isnt accurate at all.. its a vage representation where you can say: Somewhere millions of years ago, without actually knowing it.
That's because at 100,000 years the technique pushes the limit of potassium-argon dating since the presence of potassium-40 is minuscule compared to a fossil billions of years old. The amount of K40 you quoted is also small, so depending on the presence of K40 in the sample a varying result would be produced. Older samples need less K40 present to produce accurate results whereas newer samples (100,000 years is the limit) need more.
The intention with these methods is not to show conclusive proof that the earth is x number of years old. Any method will give you a rough estimate as to the age of the sample. Sometimes that method will have a deviation of plus or minus 5,000 years and sometimes it will deviate plus or minus 50 million years. As these methods improve and as new methods for dating arise, gaps will close. Regardless, and what many people don't understand, is that a million years of time is incomprehensible to humans, but in earth history it's actually nothing, less than 1% of time. I agree, methods need to improve, but trying to discount them because there's some deviation in the results is absurd especially when it's the best we have in determining a blueprint of our world.
so who is going to make the creationist vs evoloutinist thread?
lynx
beaten final fantasy III,IV,VI,VII,VIII,IX,X,X-2,XII,mystic quest, tacitcs, tactics advanced, crystal chronicles.
you only live once but if you do it right once is enough
my FF amvs
I thought for dating even older things, the ratio of Uranium-238 to Lead-206 is used, because of the long half-life (4500 million years) of the Uranium isotope. I was under the impression it was used to date the really old rocks that they've found.
Uranium-lead dating
"Reality is that which,
when you stop believing in it,
doesn't go away".
Philip K. Dick
lynx
beaten final fantasy III,IV,VI,VII,VIII,IX,X,X-2,XII,mystic quest, tacitcs, tactics advanced, crystal chronicles.
you only live once but if you do it right once is enough
my FF amvs
WHO | Depleted uranium
90 micrograms. With an intake of 0.5 from food and water, and 0.6 from the air.
Last edited by belkor_teh_magnificent; 01-08-2008 at 05:22 PM.
Kudos to starseeker for the sig \m/