Evidence that the earth is Young

Adam to Noah
If we take Adam’s creation by God to be year 0 we can determine the
approximate age of the Earth as follows;

Year 0: Adam and Eve were created by God
Year 130: Seth was born (Genesis 5:3)
Year 235: Enosh was born (Genesis 5:6)
Year 325: Kenan was born (Genesis 5:9)
Year 395: Mahalalel was born (Genesis 5:12)
Year 460: Jared was born (Genesis 5:15)
Year 522: Enoch was born (Genesis 5:18)
Year 587: Methuselah was born (Genesis 5:21)
Year 774: Lamech was born (Genesis 5:25)
Year 956: Noah was born (Genesis 5:28)
Year 1456: Shem, Ham, and Japeth were born (Genesis 5:32)
Year 1556: Flood began (Genesis 7:6)
Year 1557: Flood ended (Genesis 8:13)

Noah to Abraham
Year 1559: Arpachshad was born (Genesis 11:10)
Year 1594: Shelah was born (Genesis 11:12)
Year 1624: Eber was born (Genesis 11:14)
Year 1658: Peleg was born (Genesis 11:16)
Year 1688: Reu was born (Genesis 11:18)
Year 1720: Serug was born (Genesis 11:20)
Year 1750: Nahor was born (Genesis 11:22)
Year 1779: Terah was born (Genesis 11:24)
Year 1849: Abram, Nahor, and Haran were born (Genesis 11:26)

Abraham to Jesus
Year 1949: Isaac was born (Genesis 21:2)
Year 2009: Jacob was born (Genesis 25:26)
Year 2156: Jacob died (Genesis 47:28)
Year 2586: Nation Israel left Egypt (430 years in captivity)
Year 2936: Saul became king (about 1050 BC)
Year 3986: Jesus was born
Year 4019: Jesus was crucified

From the death of Jacob to Jesus is a close approximate as the Bible and Archeology do not pinpoint exact times but we can certainly be sure that these ages are within 100 years of being accurate. Therefore if we add 2015 years (at the time of this writing) we see that Biblically the Earth cannot be more than 6034 to 6134 years old.

The Hebrew word yom, day, is used 2301 times in the Old Testament. We know precisely in what sense the word is used everywhere, except, of course, in Genesis 1.
Sometimes the word means "time" in the day of the Lord" or "in the day(s) of the Judges" WHERE THE WORD IS NOT PLURAL IN HEBREW, THE WORD MEANS TIME. So how do we determine when the word means a literal 24 hour period?
Outside of Genesis 1,
The word is used 410 times with the word day PLUS A NUMBER, and it always means a 24 hour period.
The word yom is used WITH EVENING AND MORNING 38 times, and always means a 24 hour period.
It is used WITH MORNING 23 times and WITH EVENING 23 times and each time it means an ordinary day.
The word day is used WITH THE WORD NIGHT 52 TIMES and each time it means a 24 hour day.
To sum up, outside of Genesis 1, yom means 24 hours when it is used with a number (six days), whenever the phrase "evening and morning" or "evening" or "morning" is used with yom, and whenever the word is used with the word night.
I have heard it said that the creation story in Genesis 1 is a unique genre, since there is absolutely no parallel to it in the rest of Genesis. Not true.
No one ever questions whether Joshua might have marched around Jericho for 100,000 years or millions of years because day with a number always means a 24 hour period or a daylight period.
What if we apply these tests to Genesis 1, we have in Genesis 1: 5, night, evening, morning number, 1:8, evening, morning, number, 1:13, evening morning number, 1:18, evening, morning, number, 1:23, evening morning number, and 1:31, evening morning number. So God's intention is clear. HE IS SPEAKING OF ORDINARY DAYS.
Why do we reject it? Because of what the ATHEISTIC SCIENTISTS say. But forensic science is not observational science. it is an INTERPRETATION of data.
When the atheist sees the results of the flood of Noah, with fish fossils on the mountain tops all the way to Everest, and hundreds and thousands of feet of fossil laden sediment layers that cover whole continents and even extend across continents, he says millions of years of gradual sedimentation. We say the flood of Noah.

Evidences for a Recent Creation
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/Evidences.htm

A Comparison of the Old Earth and Young Earth Creationist Models

https://www.rae.org/essay-links/oldyoung/

Just a short overview of my position on the old/young earth issue:

Either is possible, but I lean toward a young-earth view for the following reasons:

A literal 6 day creation is the most clear and simple interpretation of Genesis and other scriptures that speak of creation and the 6 days thereof.
Most or all of what we view from a geological viewpoint that would seem to point to an old earth can be explained or interpreted in light of the fact that a great flood (and its geological/meteorological aftermath) utterly transformed the earth and totally altered the geological “record”.
The fossil record can be largely or entirely viewed as a result of the flood.
While there are some unresolved issues/problems with a young earth view, there are an equal number (or more) problems with an old earth view. This fact is largely ignored by “secular” science.
A young earth view is the historic view of the Church and Rabbis in Judaism. Both Rabbis and the post-apostolic fathers wrote of the earth as being young. Some, in fact, believed it would last for 7000 years (2000 years of nations (chaos?), 2000 years of Law, 2000 years of Grace, and 1000 years of Messiah).
Old-earth dating methods are inconclusive, often conflict, and often produce bogus results (giving ancient dates on recent lava flows, living shellfish,etc).
Old-earth views often discount the Flood as of little significance when interpreting geological strata (most “secular” geologists do not believe such a global flood even happened). For example, oldeartherswould view the Grand Canyon as the result of millions of years of sediment deposition and erosion. Young earthers would view the area as a result of massive sediment deposition during the flood, accompanied by land upheaval and massive river flows during immediate post-flood era. Consider what a raging torrent the Colorado River must have been as the flood waters receded!
A “day-age” interpretation of Genesis 1 has some logical problems:
— Just how many millenia did plants live (created “day” 3) without sunlight (created “day” 4), which all land plants are dependent upon for light, warmth, reproduction, photosynthesis, and their day/night cycles?

— Many plants are almost totally dependent upon insects for pollenization and reproduction. Some also depend on birds and animals. Such plants could not have survived for more than a single life cycle much less millions of years (again, plants came on “day” 3, insects day “6”… millions/billions of years later?).

— God did not “give every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth…” as food for “all the beast… birds… creatures… [and] everything that has the breath of life in it…” until day 6. Why would God wait millions/billions of years to declare this? The phrase “And it was so” seems to indicate that it was at the moment that God spoke that this law was established for both man and beast.

How Old is the Earth? (Creation.com)

I’m open to other opinions. [My friend] has made some excellent points that bear consideration. But the evidence that we see on earth can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Old-earthers see it through their rose-colored glasses, young-earthers through theirs.

So I ask, what does the text most plainly say? What has the Church historically taught? To me, both say “young earth”. So, for now, there I stand.

Lindsay Marks Harold
1. Radiogenic helium from the Helium Diffusion Dating method far exceeds what should be present in zircon. Given the known thermal history of these sites, helium diffusion rates match YEC predictions exactly, but are off by a factor of 100,000 from old earth predictions.
2. Soft tissue in dinosaur remains. All the decay studies on proteins show they cannot remain intact for more than 1-2 million years, even under the most ideal circumstances. Yet we find intact proteins in soft, stretchy tissue in dinosaur bones that have experienced very sub-optimal conditions such as water, bacteria, freeze-thaw cycles, and summer heat.
3. C-14 in every natural carbon source regardless of supposed age, including coal, dinosaur bone, and diamond. The amount of subterranean radiation that would be necessary to produce this would make these sites very productive uranium deposits.
4. Salt in the ocean. The ocean grows saltier over time because water evaporates while salt does not. Even the most conservative estimates, with the most generous assumptions for long ages, give a maximum age for the oceans of around 60 million years.
5. Cold slabs of continental crust deep in the mantle. At present subduction rates, these slabs should reach thermal equilibrium with the surrounding mantle rocks as quickly as they are subducted, but instead are more than a thousand degrees C cooler.
6. Recession rate of the moon. The moon grows farther away due to tidal friction. The measured rates of recession are not consistent with the proposed age of the earth-moon system.
7. Expansion rates of supernovae remnants are consistent with young earth chronology.
8. Mitochrondrial DNA shows that the most recent female ancestor of all humans lived about 6,000 years ago, and that all humans have since descended from one of three women (Noah's daughters in law). This clock comes straight from measured mutation rates applied to the measured differences in mitochondrial DNA among humans. In other words, unlike the official age given to "Mitochondrial Eve" in the mainstream model, this calculation is based solely on data rather than fudge factors.
9. The earth's crust is literally covered with evidence of a global flood. If Genesis did not mention a global flood, then secular geologists would have adopted that as the best explanation of earth history long ago. Some have proposed a global flood for Mars (even though that planet has no known source of liquid water).

Here's a short list of some dating methods that refute deep time.
Helium in the atmosphere,
Helium in the ground,
Geological activity of the moon,
Roche limit, Build up of carbon 14 [Only enough in the atmosphere for an earth less than 20,000 years old],
Human population,
Natural plutonium,
Erosion of continents,
Earth’s magnetic field,
Oil pressure in the earth,
Natural gas in the earth,
Orphan radio halos,
Neutrons & strontium,
Coral reef growth,
Oldest living plants,
Human civilizations,
River delta growth,
Under sea oil seepage,
Uranium in sea,
Neutrons and lead,
Interstellar gas expansion,
C-14 in meteorites,
Interplanetary dust removal,
Lifetime of meteor showers,
Peat bog growth,
Poly-strata fossils,
Hardening of rocks,
Decay of Saturn’s rings,
Potassium in the sea,
Titan’s methane loss,
Internal heat of Io,
Leaching of chlorine,
Radiogenic lead,
Niagara Falls erosion,
Seafloor calcareous ooze,
Uranium decay,
Squashed radio halos,
rotating spiral galaxies that cannot last billions of years; they would be twisted up beyond recognition,
multitudes of hot blue stars which cannot last billions of years,
decaying magnetic fields,
disintegrating comets,
the horizon problem.
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// Continental drift under the current YEC models, you cook all life on earth again due to the heat generated.//
Maybe it has not yet been figured out. That doesn't mean it cannot be. As an example; when the basalt next to the mid Atlantic ridge was drilled through, there was no consistency to magnetic pattern in the underlying rock. That is expected with rapid formation of the basalt from Noah's flood; not with long ages of continental drift.
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I gave some examples above of many bits of evidence that the old earther has to overcome. Both the old earther and the young earther need rescuing devices for many bits of evidence. Neither philosophy can be proven with evidence. THAT is a fact.
The bottom line is that evidence will never convince anyone. The evidence is ALWAYS peered at through the philosophical worldview lens one espouses. The real difference between people like me and those like you is that many biblical creationists are both willing and able to see the evidence through your lens. That is the only way I can see the shortcomings of your claims.
I have yet to meet a God denier who is capable of viewing evidence through the lens of biblical creation. The best they do is like you are right now: They ALWAYS seek just enough information to fulfill their need for confirmation bias and ignore all the problems with their own philosophical worldview.
This is an interesting stance coming from someone who has no explanations at all for any origins. The naturalist doesn't even bother to try to find the original uncaused cause that brought the universe into existence. The origin of life is another the God denier won't touch. The only thing they say is exactly what I said about the heat problem. The God denier appeals to the "I don't know" answer for all things origin related.
Since there are so many things that point to a young earth and universe; and since all the dating methods are based on unknowable assumptions such as the beginning mother daughter ratio and the uniformity of exchange rates through time, the God denier has nothing on which to base his beliefs except guesswork.”

DNA in ‘ancient’ fossils. DNA extracted from bacteria that are supposed to be 425 million years old brings into question that age, because DNA could not last more than thousands of years.
Lazarus bacteria—bacteria revived from salt inclusions supposedly 250 million years old, suggest the salt is not millions of years old. See also Salty saga.
The decay in the human genome due to multiple slightly deleterious mutations each generation is consistent with an origin several thousand years ago. Sanford, J., Genetic entropy and the mystery of the genome, Ivan Press, 2005; see review of the book and the interview with the author in Creation30(4):45–47,September 2008. This has been confirmed by realistic modelling of population genetics, which shows that genomes are young, in the order of thousands of years. See Sanford, J., Baumgardner, J., Brewer, W., Gibson, P. and Remine, W., Mendel’s Accountant: A biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program, SCPE 8(2):147–165, 2007.
The data for ‘mitochondrial Eve’ are consistent with a common origin of all humans several thousand years ago.
Very limited variation in the DNA sequence on the human Y-chromosome around the world is consistent with a recent origin of mankind, thousands not millions of years.
Many fossil bones ‘dated’ at many millions of years old are hardly mineralized, if at all. This contradicts the widely believed old age of the earth. See, for example, Dinosaur bones just how old are they really? Tubes of marine worms, ‘dated’ at 550 million years old, that are soft and flexible and apparently composed of the original organic compounds hold the record (original paper).
Dinosaur blood cells, blood vessels, proteins (hemoglobin, osteocalcin, collagen, histones) and DNA are not consistent with their supposed more than 65-million-year age, but make more sense if the remains are thousands of years old (at most).
Lack of 50:50 racemization of amino acids in fossils ‘dated’ at millions of years old, whereas complete racemization would occur in thousands of years.
Living fossils—jellyfish, graptolites, coelacanth, stromatolites, Wollemi pine and hundreds more. That many hundreds of species could remain so unchanged, for even up to billions of years in the case of stromatolites, speaks against the millions and billions of years being real.
Discontinuous fossil sequences. E.g. Coelacanth, Wollemi pine and various ‘index’ fossils, which are present in supposedly ancient strata, missing in strata representing many millions of years since, but still living today. Such discontinuities speak against the interpretation of the rock formations as vast geological ages—how could Coelacanths have avoided being fossilized for 65 million years, for example? See The ‘Lazarus effect’: rodent ‘resurrection’!
The ages of the world’s oldest living organisms, trees, are consistent with an age of the earth of thousands of years.

Science Confirms a Young Earth—The Radioactive Dating Methods are Flawed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AomTKRLB_4&fbclid=IwAR18V0MUMdW13ZpdHWuqmdnrJlR6Dwxthh3K4z8s43djPhIPYmfuma47J-w

OECs have a serious problem and Turek is no different.
His first 3 premises can be proven wrong.
Starting with "In the beginning....God created" ... then the days came later. This is a complete misrepresentation of the Bible's language.
That first STATEMENT is an overview that has been interpreted by all Bible scholars, until about the 18th century, as a prelude statement to HOW God Created ... which he then explains starting with day 1 in verse 2. Please note that most of our modern Bibles have created paragraphs which the Hebrew writings never intended.
His next premise talks about assumptions of the speed of light but never mentions gravitational time dilation or anisotropic synchrony convention which both need to be considered when dealing with the speed of light.
And ... excuse me ... who created time and how he was going to apply it?
His next premise deals with the rate of decay in uranium ... but again misrepresents the fact there are two other assumptions that are involved in radiometric dating calculations which means there are at least 3 unknown, assumed but unproven speculations regarding any rock sample.
OEC's are real good a leaving out facts and misrepresenting ALL of the information that needs to be considered.
THEREFORE ... THE QUESTION OF HOW OLD BOTH THE UNIVERSE AND THE EARTH ARE ... IS NOT SETTLED SCIENCE.
Oh ... and lest I forget ... When was the sun created???
If you accept the big bang theory ... you have the formation of the sun prior to the earth. Is that what the Bible says?

Creation-Seven days or Seven ages? part 1 of series

Does the Bible teach that creation took place in seven literal days?  Or could it be read as teaching seven long ages of creation?  This has been a great debate among Bible believers for centuries, causing some to view the Bible as conflicting with the findings of modern science.  As a result, many Bible teachers have felt the need to insist that the creation days aren’t literal 24 hour days, in order to make Genesis conform to scientific facts.  But two questions need to be asked.  First, does Genesis really teach literal days or can it be interpreted as teaching long ages?  That will be the subject of this article.  Second, what exactly are those scientific facts about earth’s age and creation, and is it possible to have more than one interpretation of the scientific evidence?  We will address the second question in future articles in this series.
There have been three main attempts to interpret Genesis as teaching non-literal days: The Gap Theory, the Day-Age Theory, and the more recent Framework Hypothesis.  Let’s look at each of these briefly to see if they stand up to sound biblical and scientific study.
The Gap Theory:
This is probably the least popular of the three today, although it was more widespread years ago.  Proponents of this theory teach that a large time gap can be inserted between the first two verses of the creation account in Genesis. They teach that the earth had a great cataclysm and so “became” formless rather than “was ” formless when first created, and was therefore essentially “remade” in six literal days.  So all the geological ages are inserted in between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.
One of the main problems with this idea is that such a cataclysm would have destroyed the very geological rock record that the Gap theorists are trying to accommodate.    So the Gap Theory in essence destroys itself!  Furthermore, the rock record speaks of a world much like our own today in terms of types of animals and environments  fossilized, with the same types of suffering and death-neither conforming to a creation called “very good” in Genesis.  It also conflicts with other Bible passages that teach that death started with man’s sin (Romans 5;12, 1 Corinthians 15:21), and that the whole creation took six days (Exodus 20:11).
The Hebrew words “tohu waw bohu”  as in the earth “became formless and empty” as Gap theorists so translate, do not necessarily mean “became formless” but rather their meaning  depends on their context in the chapter. In this case, the context (as well as the Hebrew grammar) does not warrant the translation the Gap theorists give it, but should be instead translated “The earth was formless and empty”, that is, just after creation.   Obviously God did not intend that the earth remain that way forever!  For more on the proper translation of the Hebrew in Genesis 1:2  and about the failure of the Gap Theory,  see the preceding linked article from scientist and Bible scholar Dr.  Jonathan Sarfati.
The Gap theory is unsound Biblical exegesis and a forced interpretation that largely has been abandoned by scholars today.
The Day-Age Theory:  This approach attempts to interpret the six days of creation in Genesis as six long eras, or geological “ages”.  I once loosely held that view myself as a theistic evolutionist.  I say “loosely” because I don’t think I really had thought through the difficulties with it.  At first, it seemed like there was a rough correlation between the days of creation and my understanding of  the evolutionary scenario of the earth forming, then plants and lower animals, then higher animals and finally man. I even had a college professor who taught this as a way of reconciling the two.  But although there is a superficial resemblance, there are several conflicts in the details of the sequences, such as plants before marine animals in Genesis, the reverse in the evolutionary story.  But these problems aside, the more important question is, can the creation days of Genesis be properly interpreted as ages and not literal days?
There are good reasons to believe that a proper reading of the days of creation in Genesis makes them literal days, not long ages.  Context is very important, because the word yom (day) in Hebrew can mean a solar day, daylight, or an indefinite time period.  But in the majority of cases, this word is used to mean a literal day.   Reasons to view the days in Genesis as literal include:

• The first time the word for day is used, it is defined as a literal day, with a morning and evening.
  
  
• When modified by a numeral (first day, or day one, second day, or day two, etc.) it always refers to a literal day (359 times it is used this way outside Genesis).
  
  
• When modified by the formula of morning and evening it always means a literal day.
  
  
• In Exodus 20: 11, the seven days  of creation form the basis for the length and structure of our work week. There is no clue that the meaning of the days is switched from 24 hour days to long ages.  Also compare Exodus 20:11 to a passage with a similar structure in Exodus 12:15 showing literal, sequential days: “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses…”.  Also see Exodus 24:16.
  
  
• According to many experts in Hebrew, there is no plainer way to convey the meaning of literal 24 hour days than the way the days of creation are written about in Genesis.   For an excellent article on how Hebrew experts view the days of creation see: 24 hours-Plain as Day
  
  
• The objections about the seventh day being a long day because there is no morning or evening formula are irrelevant, since creation had ceased and there was no need to talk about the 8th or 9th day, etc.  The seventh day can’t still be going on because God called that day blessed, but later on in Genesis the curse was applied to creation after sin entered the world.
  
  
• The objection that Adam couldn’t have named all the animals in one day on day seven doesn’t fly either.  It doesn’t say that Adam named all the animals, only those with which he was likely to have interaction, namely the “beasts of the field”, “birds of the air”,and “cattle” (domestic animals), etc.  These probably did not include fish, insects, or other small wild animals.  That makes sense since none of the latter would likely provide any kind of companionship for Adam.  The number of Genesis “kinds” was much smaller than the number of today’s species, being a broader categorization, and Adam named only a small part of these.  Even if Adam named over 2500 kinds of animals, it certainly wouldn’t have taken more than several hours, especially in his un-fallen state of being (see article: How could Adam have named all the animals in a single day?
  
  
• Both Jesus (Matt. 19:9, Mark 10:6) and Paul (Romans 5:12, 1Corinthians 15:45) apparently take Genesis chapter one very literally.
  
  

Given all of the above reasons, it seems the best way to read the creation days in Genesis is to take them as literal, 24 hour days.  For a good summary article with input from an Old Testament scholar, see Genesis means what it says!
The Framework Hypothesis:  This is a relatively new way of looking at Genesis One that does not take the narrative as literal history, but rather as a theological “framework”.  So the days may be literal, but they are not meant to be actual history according to this view.  But there are some sticky problems with this popular theory:
First, just because there may be a theological purpose in the arrangement of the Genesis text does not automatically mean that it isn’t real history.  For example, Genesis contains the genealogies of real people, of whom the real nation of Israel descended.
There is much internal evidence that the creation account in Genesis is meant to be read as history, not poetry.  For example,  in the creation narrative we don’t see poetic parallelism, such as in Psalm 33:9: ”  For he spake, and it was done, He commanded, and it stood fast.”  These are basically two ways of saying the same thing, and is common in Hebrew poetry, but not present in the creation account.  Also, there is a word call the waw connective that is used in historical Hebrew narrative to communicate time sequences in the past.  This waw connective is used 55 times from Genesis 1:1-2:3.   This shows that Genesis is not to be taken as poetry but as historical narrative, as I wrote about in a previous article entitled:  Is the Creation Account in Genesis Historical?
For an extensive refutation of the Framework Hypothesis, see article: A Critique of the Framework Interpretation of the Creation Account
For an extensive scholarly discussion of the days of creation in Genesis, see Refuting Compromise  by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, pages 67-144. (1)

 
So does all this mean we should conclude that we can’t take the Book of Genesis at its straightforward meaning because it supposedly conflicts with science?  Not so fast!  In the next article in this series we will look at the supposed straightforward evidence of science!

Creation-could it have only taken six days? (Part 2 of series)

We saw from a previous article that if the Bible writer’s wanted to convey that the earth was created in six literal days around 6-8,000 years ago, they could not have been much clearer about it than they are in Genesis 1.  But many otherwise fine Bible apologists sweep this option aside, even though they know the facts about the text.  This is because they believe that the scientific evidence shows clearly that the Earth is billions of years old.  But there are also good Bible apologists and credentialed scientists out there that hold to a young earth.  Is this second group composed of all crackpots, or do they have some evidence to challenge the billion year old earth conclusion?
Before I even start this discussion, let me again emphasize that there are good Christian believers on both sides of this issue, so one can be a Christian and believe either.  Most of us, myself included, were taught that the earth has been proven to be about 4.6 billion years old, and the universe even older at about 13 billion years or so.  When I initially heard of the young, thousands of years old earth idea, like most others I was very skeptical.  Up to that time I had never really heard of any scientifically credible evidence otherwise.  So I figured that as a Bible believer, I had to reconcile Genesis to the supposed proven facts of science by interpreting the creation days as ages.  But as we saw in the previous article, there are problems with this day-age idea, as well as the idea that Genesis 1 is figurative or just a myth.  So I wrestled and searched, and in doing so I discovered that the proof of an old earth is not as ironclad as I first thought.

Mass spectrometer used in radiometric dating
 
The main proof offered of an old earth is through radiometric dating of volcanic, or igneous, rocks. (Some also point to the layers of rocks containing fossils, but I will save that discussion for my upcoming articles on the Genesis Flood.)  The rates of decay of the various “parent” elements into the “daughter” elements can be very accurately measured.  So if the decay rates have not changed over time, which is assumed,  and the amounts of  “parent” and”daughter” elements can be either assumed to be zero some other known level, then based on these assumptions the “age” of the rock can be calculated.  Note that there are many assumptions and extrapolations in the process.  Why?  Well, none of us were there during this supposed 4 billion plus year history.  Our recorded history as humans only goes back to a very Biblical 6,000 years.  So we have a very large extrapolation to make in relation to our actual recorded history.  Many of you who are engineers would find this level of extrapolating very uncomfortable.  And our “age” derived by this method is only as good as the assumptions behind it.  See some sample articles on this subject:
Radiometric dating-problems with the assumptions,
Radiometric Dating and the Age of the Earth
 
As we will discover, the assumptions of the Uniformitarian Model, the idea that physical processes have not varied significantly over time since the earth was formed, is a critical one in the case for an  old earth.  But there are other models which do not hold to this assumption.  A group of PhD. scientists in the fields of geology and physics who have done research and publications in radioisotope dating came together to examine the evidence and assumptions behind the dating methods. These scientists hold to a young earth position and their research initiative was called RATE (For Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth).  They have done some ground-breaking research which reveals some of the problems with the old earth model. [1]
Not everyone who sees problems with using these dating methods to prove an old earth is a Bible believer.  In the 1997 book Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, Author and Science writer Richard Milton, who is an atheist, points out some of the same problems creationists have raised:  “…you must know the starting value of the clock-how much water was in your water clock to begin with or how tall your candle was before it was lit. And you must be sure that some external factor cannot interfere with the process while it is in operation…the process we choose will have started in pre-historic times, which we have no method of directly observing and verifying.”  [2]   He comes to this conclusion about the earth’s age: “The fact is that presently it is impossible to say with any confidence how old the Earth is, beyond the obvious fact that it predates the calendar of human history” [3]
For an in-depth technical analysis of the different radiometric methods and their pitfalls, a good reference is Earth’s Catastrophic Past, by Phd. geologist Andrew Snelling [4]

For a series of articles (somewhat technical) by a nuclear physicist Dr. Vernon Cupps, see the following:
Clocks in Rocks? Radioactive Dating (part 1),
The Iconic Isochron- Radioactive Dating (part 2),
The Noble Clock-Radioactive Dating (part 3),
Alkali Metal Dating-Rb/Sr Dating Model (part 4)
Rare Earth Clocks-Sm-Nd and Lu-Hf Dating models (part 5)
Sm-Nd and Lu-Hf Dating Models Part 2-Radioactive Dating (part 6)
Heavy Metal Clocks-U-Pb and Th-Pb Dating Models (part 7)
Heavy Metal Clocks-Pb-Pb Dating Model (part
 
In the relatively few cases where independent evidence exists for the age of a rock formation (such as one formed during recorded history), the radiometric ages usually turn out to be orders of magnitude greater than the true age.  For example see this article:The Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens debunks dating methods

 
Another question to ponder is  if mankind had the same brain and capabilities for 200,000 years of his supposed history, why didn’t he get around to discovering agriculture, writing, and building cities until about 6,000 years ago, again conveniently in line with the Biblical record?
For some additional material on radiometric ages as proof of an old earth, see: Response to Geochronology: Understanding the Uncertainties, a presentation by Justin Payne, by Jim Mason, and follow up article: More on radioactive dating problems
 
In the next article in this series, I will discuss some positive evidences for a young earth and universe.
 
[1] See Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vardiman, Snelling, and Chaffin, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA,  and Creation Research Society, Chino Valley, AZ, 2005, Vol. II.
[2] Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, Richard Milton, Park Street Press, Rochester, VT, 1997, p. 39.
[3] Ibid., p.56.
[4] Earth’s Catastrophic Past, Volume 2, Dr Andrew Snelling, Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX, 2009, pp. 797-864.
[5] Photo credit: Copyright: <a href=’http://www.123rf.com/profile_mozzyb’>mozzyb / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Is a six to ten thousand year old earth preposterous? Part 3 of series

You’ve probably heard from someone in “mainstream science” that the biblical idea of the earth only being six to ten thousand years old is totally preposterous.   They will say that there is no evidence for a young earth or universe.  But the age of the earth really cannot be proven, because beyond recorded history, assumptions have to be made about the “clock” being used.  And it turns out that there are many evidences that fit a young world much better than they fit a billions of years old world.  Since you aren’t likely to hear about these because of the current hold that the worldview of long ages and evolution has on modern science, let me clue you in on some positive evidences for a thousands of years old earth.
 



1. The Earth’s magnetic field points to a young earth: The earth is surrounded by a magnetic field, that among other things, protects this planet from harmful radiation from space.  But the field strength and energy are decaying, at a rate which some scientists believe shows that this field has an upper age limit of about 10,000 years.  The decay has been confirmed by several measurements.  Since 1845 the field has been decaying at a rate of 5% per century, and archaeological measurements show that it was 40% stronger in A.D. 1000.    Some scientists have proposed that the magnetic field is caused by an electrical current in the earth’s core which has been decaying exponentially,  and although different from the conventional model, the electric current model has been confirmed by field data from geology.  The alternative conventional dynamo model contradicts some basic laws of physics, and has some problems explaining the data, including the evidence for rapid magnetic field reversals. And the electric current model was used to make predictions  of the magnetic field strengths for other planets, which were subsequently verified, even though many charge that creationist models don’t make predictions!  For  a good summary article on this, see  The earth’s magnetic field: evidence that the earth is young. For an article showing how the creationist  model explains rapid reversals of the magnetic field, see Can Catastrophic Plate Tectonics explain Flood Geology?



2. Radiocarbon found in ancient organic materials:  First of all, anyone who claims that radiocarbon dates prove that the earth is billions of years old shows that they don’t really understand the radiocarbon method.  Radiocarbon, or Carbon 14, is a radioactive isotope of Carbon.  It is formed from nitrogen in the atmosphere by the bombardment of cosmic rays, and decays back into nitrogen with a half-life of 5,730 years.  So there should be no Carbon 14 detected in any fossils or coal said to be over about 100,000 years old.   Yet many fossils have been found containing Carbon 14, which were found in rocks from all levels of the geological column, usually dated in the millions of years range.  Carbon 14 has also been found in coal seams, natural gas, oil and even diamonds, all of which were dated many times too old to contain Carbon 14. See articles:  Radioactive “dating” in conflict- (article on fossil wood containing radiocarbon), Diamonds: a creationist’s best friend, Carbon 14 Evidence for a recent global flood and a young earth by  Dr. John Baumgardner  Objections that all of this is a result of contamination do not hold up, since there are standard procedures that are designed to test for and eliminate the contamination factor: Measurable C 14 in Fossilized Organic Materials (somewhat technical article)



3. Population of the world:  Starting with just 2 people 4500-6000 years ago, with an average population growth rate of only  about .5%, much less than today’s rates of about 1-2%, we could easily reach today’s population numbers of 6-7 billion people, even taking into account wars, famines, medical advances, and the like.  By contrast, if the human race had been around for 1 million years, it would take an average population growth rate much less (.01%) than any every measured in recorded history, to reach today’s population from 2 people.  And even if it had happened that way, there would have been so many people that had lived and died that the volume of them would not fit on the earth.   We should also be able to find billions of bodies buried, since many ancient cultures buried their dead.  Even if their bodies were disintegrated, artifacts should still abound.  Population growth rates have varied throughout history, and so this is not a proof of  a young earth by any means.  However, the data fit the young earth scenario well, and do not fit the old earth model at all.  It’s significant that our recorded human history (not based on radiocarbon dates and interpretations of artefacts) only goes back about 6,000 years.  For more facts and figures on this, see these articles: How did we get so many people in such a short time?   Where are all the people?


4. Soft tissue found in dinosaur fossils:  When many people are asked how they know the earth is millions or billions of years old, they will point to dinosaur fossils as proof.  The prevailing wisdom teaches that we know they died off 65 million years ago or so.  But recently, there have been some startling finds in dinosaur fossils that have their discoverers scrambling to explain these findings in an old-earth context.   In the early 90’s paleontologist Dr. Mary Schweitzer discovered what appeared to be blood vessels in the bones of a T-rex fossil.   She was quoted in Science magazine in 1993: “It was exactly like looking at a slice of modern bone.  But, of course, I couldn’t believe it.  The bones, after all, are 65 million years old.  How could blood cells survive that long?” [1]  (also see article: The Mysteries of stunning soft tissue fossil finds)
Over the years since then, she and others have discovered  red blood cells with nuclei, branching blood vessels, flexible tissue, several proteins including collagen, immunological evidence of hemoglobin, and DNA, all in dinosaur bones.  (See article: Dinosaur soft tissue and protein-even more confirmation!
The collagen is very significant because it cannot be found in bacteria and so cannot be the result of bacterial biofilms[2].  DNA that has been found could not possibly survive over millions of years according to all laboratory evidence.  (See article by biochemist Dr. Jonathan Sarfati: DNA and bone cells found in dinosaur bone
Efforts to prove these structures as something other than they appear to be have not been successful so far, but the old-earth paradigm has such a strong hold that most are not willing to consider that these bones are not millions of years old.
See articles: Doubting doubts about the Squishosaur     Squishosaur scepticism squashed   and most recently:Dinosaur Soft Tissue
While this evidence does not prove a young earth, it is highly consistent with that model and problematic for the millions of years old model.



5. Bent and Folded Rock Layers:   A problematic geological find for an ancient earth are bent rock layers in sedimentary rock strata.  Often rock layers believed to have been laid down over time periods of hundreds of millions of years, such as in the Grand Canyon, are found with bends and folds in them, sometimes up to 90 degrees, as if they were in a soft condition when bent.   These layers can be up to thousands of feet thick, yet were bent and folded without apparent cracking or breaking.   Rock layers laid down by water could be bent and folded when in a soft condition, but would harden in at the most 100 years.
For example, in the Grand Canyon, there are several layers believed to have been deposited from 520 to 250 million years ago, then all these layers uplifted around 70 million years ago, yet they did not break or crack, but look as though they were folded and bent while in a soft condition.  How could they have remained in a soft condition for all that time?  But if they were laid down relatively rapidly, then they could have been bent or folded before they hardened.  This phenomenon is not a local one, but can be found in formations that are almost continent-wide.
The standard answer to this finding is that supposedly if there is enough heat and pressure from all sides on a rock, it can be made bendable.  The problem is that this would visible alter and elongate sand grains or cement in the rock, and they would be in either a broken or recrystallized state, and these features are not seen in the bent rock layers.  Also the rock itself is not different then the surrounding rock that is not bent.  It has not been transformed into metamorphic rock such as quartzite or marble, by the heat and pressure, if this were the correct explanation for the bending.
If the Genesis Flood happened as in the Bible, we would expect these sediments to be laid down quickly and would have been deformed during the flood as tectonic uplifting took place.  More recent post-flood uplift and faulting would have broken or cracked these same sediment layers.  In fact, additional evidence that fits the Flood model is the fact that the rocks believed to be pre-flood, such as the Vishnu Schist, did break during tectonic uplifting as would be expected.
This geological phenomenon does not prove a young earth or Noah’s flood, but is consistent with both, and inconsistent with an old-earth model.
For reference articles on this subject,  see below :




Rock Layers Folded, not Fractured,
Warped Earth?
Grand Canyon strata show geologic time to be imaginary
In the next article in this series, we will look at some more evidences for a young earth and universe.
[1]Morell, V, Dino DNA, the hunt and the hype, Science 261 (5118): 160,1993.
[2] Wieland, C. and Menton, D. Answering Objections to creationist “Dinosaur Soft Tissue” age arguments, Journal of Creation, 19 (3):54-59, 2005.
Photo credit: Copyright: <a href=’http://www.123rf.com/profile_grechka’>grechka / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

More evidence for a Young Earth-part 4 of series

In the last article in this series we introduced 5 positive evidences for a young earth.  I want to talk about 5 more lines of evidence in this article.    So let’s pick up where we left off:





6.  The amount of Salt in the Sea:  Each year many tons of salt are dumped into the oceans from various sources.  These include weathering and dissolving of minerals by rivers, salt from glaciers, dust from the atmosphere and volcanic dust, salt from ground water seepage, and other sources.  These together dump about 350-450 million tons of Sodium Chloride (salt) into the oceans per year.  Salt is removed from the oceans by processes such as sea spray,  ion exchange with clays, the formation of basalts at mid-ocean ridges, and other sources.  These remove about 122 million tons of salt per year from the oceans.   So at today’s rates of input and output, even with the maximum output rates and minimum input rates, the level of salt in today’s oceans would have accumulated in no more than 62 million years (1).  This age is far younger than the assumed 3.6 billion year age for the earth.
Geologist Dr. Stephen Austin and physicist Dr. Russell Humphreys did a study on the level of salt in the ocean, using the most generous output rates and the stingiest input rates, and still came to the conclusion that there should be much more salt if the oceans are 3.6 billion years old (2).  Even the removal of salt by mid ocean ridge basalts doesn’t solve the problem, because the salt is put back into the ocean as the basalts move away from the mid-ocean ridges.  (See articles:
The Sea’s Missing Salt: A dilemma for evolutionists-Steven Austin, PhD & Russell Humphreys, PhD.
Salty Seas-evidence for a young earth)
 
The 62 million year maximum is based on today’s rates and also assumes no salt at the beginning.  But if the oceans were created with salt already in them for the creatures that lived there, then the age would be reduced.  Also, if the Flood of Noah happened as in the Bible, then great quantities of salt would have been added to the oceans at that time.    But even at today’s rates, if the oceans were billions of years old, then the salt level would be so high that no life could exist in them.







7.  Not enough Sediment on Sea Floor/Erosion of Continents:
Yet another problem for the old-earth view is the lack of sufficient sediments on the sea floor.   Currently, water and wind erode about 20 billion tons of rock debris and dirt, which the rivers deposit into the oceans.  Most of this builds up close to the continental shores.  The average thickness of sea floor sediments is about 1,300 feet and the estimated current quantity is about 410 million billion tons (3) .  Sediment is removed from the ocean floor as tectonic plates slide beneath the continents.  However, this subduction process removes only about 1 billion tons per year (4). Also, most sediment accumulates at river deltas, most of which are not near subduction zones. ( for the source of these estimates, see: Very Little Sediment on Seafloor
So, at a net 19 billion tons per year increase and assuming these rates for all of the ocean’s history, the sediment on the sea floor would accumulate in no more than 14 million years, much younger than the assumed 3.6 billion year age of the earth.  In other words, the oceans should be completely filled with sediments if the earth is 3.6 billion years old. The removal of sediment by subduction too slow to compensate for this, as shown above.  Also, the sediments on the continental shelves have features that indicate they were deposited more rapidly than at today’s rates.   Again, the 14 million year old maximum assumes that there was no global Flood which would have sped up the deposition of sediments by many factors.  Others have estimated similar maximum ages: The Mud is Missing , The Sands of Time: A Biblical Model of Deep-Sea Floor Sedimentation
Moreover, there are other indicators of a young ocean floor: Manganese Nodules and the Age of the Ocean Floor, also :  Evolution: the Oceans says NO!
Related to this is the erosion of the continents.  The volume of the continents above sea level has been measured at about 383 million billion tons.  Assuming  erosion rates of about 27.5 million tons per year, the continents would have eroded completely away in about 14 million years! (5)




Some will counter this by saying that the continents are replaced from below by tectonic uplift that balances the erosion.  The problem is, the rocks on the surface now are believed to be the same rocks that were there when ancient uplifts occured, such as the Laramide Orogeny in the Grand Canyon, believed to be about 70 million years ago.  Also there is so much sedimentary rock on the earth believed to be hundreds of millions of years old or more.  If the uplift and erosion had been going on for that long, these ancient rocks should have been eroded away and replaced many times over. (6) If it is claimed that human activity sped up the erosion rate recently, the fact is that would account at the most about a doubling of erosion rates, and that only over a few thousand years.  For more information on how the data of continental erosion fits the young earth model better than the old earth model, see: Eroding Ages; If our continents were old, they would no longer be here, and : Evolution: the Oceans says NO!
These maximum ages for the earth derived for these processes of course do not take the global Flood of Noah into account, which would have greatly accelerated erosion and sedimentation rates. Even a local flash flood today multiplies the rates of erosion and deposition by about 10,000 (7).  But this data shows that the presumed age of the earth, even assuming today’s rates of these processes, is far too old.



8. Helium in Radioactive Rocks:  Yet another piece of evidence that fits the young earth model is the presence of large amounts of Helium in radioactive rocks.   A group of PhD Scientists in the fields of geology, physics, and various other disciplines, known as the R.A.T.E group (which stands for Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) studied zircon crystals in granite deposits in New Mexico.  These zircon crystals incorporated radioactive elements such as Uranium and Thorium when they were formed.
Uranium decays into lead and helium over time.  But helium produced by decay is an inert gas and should not combine with other atoms, and helium atoms are small and easily should leak out of the zircon crystals and be mostly gone if the crystals are millions or billions of years old.  Yet the RATE scientists found that way too much helium was still retained in these crystals if they are 1.5 billion years old as dated by Uranium-Lead dating methods, amounting up to 58% retained of  the total amount of helium that should have been produced during 1.5 billion years of decay at a given temperature. As expected, the higher the temperature, the lower percentage of helium retained, but even in the hottest rocks, there was a much larger than expected helium amount still in the rocks.  So the key question to answer is why was the helium still in the rocks, when it should have mostly leaked out over millions or billions of years?
To answer this, they needed to measure the leakage rate of helium, and they sent samples to a laboratory expert in measuring helium diffusion.  They made some predictions: if the zircons were 1.5 billion years old, then the measured diffusion rate should be slow, and if they were only 6,000-10,000 years old, the measured helium diffusion rate should be much faster.  The results from the laboratory gave the faster rate, in fact matching up very well if the helium had only been diffusing out for about 6,000 years {11}.  So the long-age model requires helium diffusion to be about 100,000 time slower than what was actually measured.  They concluded that the only way to reconcile the large amounts of helium with the fast diffusion rate of that helium is to postulate a time or times of accelerated nuclear decay in these crystals, which means that the radiometric “clock” has not always run at the slow rates of today.


For a comprehensive article on this evidence, see:
Helium Diffusion Rates Support Accelerated Nuclear Decay  For answers to critics, see:
Helium Evidence for a young world continues to confound critics
The RATE scientists concluded that these results give evidence for accelerated radioactive decay, and a young age for the earth.





9. The Short lives of Comets:Evidence for a young earth also extends out into the solar system.  Comets are large balls of ice and dirt that have long, sometimes elliptical orbits around the sun in our solar system.  Their orbits eventually pass close by the sun, which “slingshots” them and speeds them up, and the solar wind and radiation produces in them the characteristic “tail”.   But they are not very massive, and each pass by the sun causes a significant amount of disintegration.  In fact, the “tail” means that they are losing material and therefore shrinking.   Eventually they are gone completely, if they haven’t crashed into a planet first.   They can also be ejected from the solar system by passing too close to a large planet and being catapulted away by the planet’s gravity.  So with all these ways they can be lost or destroyed, the average comet  would not last very long .  It is estimated that the typical comet would last only 100,000 years at the most.  The fact that they are so numerous fits a young earth model where the solar system is not billions of years old.  See article:
Comets and the Age of the Solar System
Old earth advocates realize this and have had to come up with a mechanism by which the supply of comets is replenished in the solar system.  One solution is that they come from a cloud of comets called the Oort Cloud, named after it’s proponent  astronomer Jan Oort.  However, there is no positive evidence for the Oort Cloud’s existence.  There are other problems with the Oort Cloud model as well (10).  Another possible source mentioned is a belt of objects on the outer solar system called the Kuiper Belt.  There are indeed thousands of objects out in this region, but they are large asteroids and planetoids (such as Pluto) and are also made of different materials than comets. so are not a likely source for them either.  There is also nowhere near enough Kuiper objects to supply the comets needed, even if comets had been actually found in this region. (10)





10.  The Faint Young Sun Paradox:  There are more evidences fitting a young solar system and therefore a young earth. One of these has to do with what energy source powers the sun.  The most recent theory postulates that the sun is powered by the conversion of hydrogen into helium in the sun’s core.  According to this theory the sun could be powered this way for about 10 billion years.  So if the sun is 4.6 billion years old, then it would be a “middle aged” star.  During the time nuclear fusion was going on, the composition of the sun’s core would change, with the result that the sun would gradually get brighter and warmer over time.  So if the sun is 4.6 billion years old, it should have brightened about 40%.
Here’s the problem.  If life began on earth 3.8 billion years ago as is commonly believed, then from then until now the sun would have brightened by about 25%.  This would mean that back then it would have been about 25% fainter, with a corresponding less average earth temperature.  This would give an average temperature so low (about -3 degrees Centigrade, in contrast to the 15 degrees C average temp. today)  that life could not have survived on earth or evolved to higher forms.     Yet most still believe that earth’s temperature was relatively constant over that time period.  How such an even temperature could be maintained with the increasing brightness of the sun is called the “early faint sun paradox”.
To get around this problem, some scientists propose that in the early earth atmosphere there were more greenhouse gases than we have currently and so the coldness would be offset by the greenhouse effect.  But the problem with this idea is that even a small change in temperature drastically affects the earth ecosystem, so the decrease in temperature by having less greenhouse gases over time would have to track very closely with the increase in temperature due to the sun’s changes.  This seems to be an ad-hoc solution with some great fine-tuning required.
The problem goes away completely if the sun is only 6-8 thousand years old, since therefore there would not be as much of a temperature difference during the sun’s lifetime.  So this evidence fits a young solar system model.  For more articles on this subject, see:The Young Faint Sun Paradox and the Age of the Solar System, Our Steady Sun: A problem for billions of years, and Is the Faint Young Sun Paradox solved?, New science on the young sun, and earth migration
See other articles about evidences that fit a young earth and solar system:  The Age of the Jovian Planets ; The Moon’s Recession and Age ; Neptune-Monument to Creation
 
Summary: So far in this article series we have seen that there is positive evidence out there for a young earth and solar system, evidence that is not often talked about because the reigning preferred method of interpreting the data is the old earth method.   In fact, there are many more evidences besides the ten mentioned in the last two articles  See the following comprehensive article:
Age of the Earth-101 Evidences for a young age of the earth and universe
But how about those evidences that seem to be proof for an old earth and universe?.  We have already discussed radiometric dating and it’s problems.  In the next article in this series, we will look at a few other important evidences that supposedly prove that the earth and universe are billions of years old.
 
(1) The Young Earth, John Morris, Master Books, Green Forest, AR,  Rev. ed. 2007, p. 90.
(2) Ibid., pp. 89-90.  For original article, see S. A. Austin and D. R. Humphreys, “The Sea’s Missing Salt: A Dilemma for Evolutionists”-in R.E. Walsh and C.L. Brooks, editors, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, Vol II, p. 17-33 (1990).
(3) Ibid., p. 93.
(4) Ibid., p. 93.
(5) Ibid., pp. 92-93.
(6) Ibid., pp. 92-93
(7)Earth’s Catastrophic Past, Andrew Snelling, Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX, Volume 2, pp. 488-489. (flash floods)
(8 ) Thousands, not Billions, Dr. Donald DeYoung, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2005, pp. 65-78.  For a more detailed and technical discussion by the RATE Scientists, see Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, edited by Dr.s Vardiman, Snelling, and Chaffin, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA, and Creation Research Society, Chino Valley, AZ, 2005, pp.25-100.  These included answers to some common objections that have been raised.
(9) Taking Back Astronomy, Dr. Jason Lisle,  Master Books, Green Forest, AR, 2006, pp. 67-68.
(10) Refuting Compromise, Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, Master Books, Green Forest, AR,  Updated and Expanded edition, 2011, pp.345-348.
{11} See Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vardiman, Snelling, & Chaffin, editors, ICR and Creation Research Society, Chino Valley, AZ, 2005, pp. 25-100.  For a less technical treatment, see Thousands… not Billions, Dr. Don DeYoung, Master Books, Green Forest, AZ, 2005, pp. 65-78.

But what about other scientific evidence that seems to prove an old earth and universe? part 5 of series

We have already looked at the principal evidence used for an old earth, radiometric dating, and have seen that it has many assumptions built into it, and there are problems with concluding that it proves an old earth.   See article in part 2 of this series:
Creation-Could it have only taken six days?
But there are other evidences cited as well, such as the age of ice cores that supposedly prove the existence of ancient “ice ages”.
However, just as we saw that there are different ways of interpreting the radiometric data, there are also different results on can get from the ice core data, depending on your starting assumptions.
Ice cores are sections of ice that have been drilled out of Antarctic and Greenland ice, that represent snowfall that has turned to ice.  By counting the bands or layers, and assuming that those bands are annual layers, great ages, in the hundreds of thousands, or millions of years, are deduced from the data.  The question is,  are these really annual layers, especially in the deeper parts of the ice core?
One of the methods used to identify supposed annual layers is the Oxygen Isotope Ratio method.   Marine organisms such as Foraminifera take in oxygen when they build their shells that are made out of calcium carbonate (CaCO3).  These shells become ocean bottom sediment when these creatures die, and two isotopes of oxygen that are incorporated into these shells , the O18 to O16 ratio, can be measured from shell remains at different levels withing the sea sediment.  These two isotopes of Oxygen, O 18 and O 16 , are compared and the ratio determined.  During a warmer period, the ratio of O18 to O16 is higher, and it is lower during a cooler period.  The seasonal difference is interpreted as an annual change.  However, there are serious difficulties with using these isotope ratios to determine past climate changes, because there are many other variables that affect this ratio besides the general overall climate, such as local short-term variations in temperature and ice volume.  Also, this method of detecting annual layers does not work well or at all  in the deeper parts of the cores.
But it is assumed that the ice sheet is millions of years old, and that the sheet has stayed at about the same height and shape for a few million years.  So they believe that each annual layer has been compressed deeper and deeper into the ice sheet, until the layers are very compressed and thin, yet they are still counted as annual layers.  So the large number of annual layers is a product of the assumed long time period.  What makes this an even more difficult problem is that at greater depths in the ice core, the layering become less distinct and methods other than straightforward visual counting must be used (see article by physicist Dr. Jake Hebert: Ice Cores, Seafloor Sediments, and the Age of the Earth  (part 1)).  These other methods such as looking for dusty bands and changes in electrical conductivity of the ice have similar problems as well, getting worse with depth (Ice Cores, Sea Floor Sediments, and the Age of the Earth ( part 2))
But if the ice sheet is assumed to be younger, that is, 4,000 to 5,000 years old according to the theory of a post-flood Ice Age, then the compression of the ice would be much less, and one annual layer deep down may have been interpreted as 100 or 1,000 annual cycles. But they may in fact only represent storm cycles and other variations within a single year.
Atmospheric scientist Michael J. Oard comments on this in his article :Do Greenland ice cores show over one hundred thousand years of annual layers?:





“From their flow models, uniformitarian scientists estimate the anticipated thickness of each annual layer from the top of the ice to near the bottom. At the top, the annual layers represent about 800 mm of compacted snow, which will compress into 240 mm of ice.⁸ These annual layers show up quite well near the top of the ice core. Uniformitarians and creationists agree that these measurements represent annual layers. However, after compression, the annual layer thickness of each model, shown in Figure 3, soon diverges significantly, and the agreement ends. For example, 2,000 m down the GISP2 Greenland ice core, the assumed annual layer thickness from the uniformitarian model would be about 20 mm,⁹ whereas the creationist estimate would be around 2,000 mm, 100 times more.  The assumed thickness of the annual layers is important because it determines how many measurements of each variable are made down the length of the core. Based on their expected annual thickness, uniformitarian scientists take enough measurements to resolve what they believe are annual cycles.”
So we can see that the age estimates depend on the starting assumptions of the model one is using.
Oard goes on in this article to show how changes and oscillations in the variables used in the conventional model to determine annual layers, could in fact be produced in a single year: “
In the creationist model, the oscillations in the variables used by uniformitarians to determine annual layers could have been produced within a single year. Indeed, uniformitarians understand that very short-term oscillations, representing as little as a day or two, show up in the variables.¹² For example, a storm has a warm and cold sector that produces significant fluctuation in each of the variables and these storm oscillations may be on the order of several days. Even uniformitarians recognise that these storms can produce problems for counting annual layers, as Alley et al. state:

‘Fundamentally, in counting any annual marker, we must ask whether it is absolutely unequivocal, or whether nonannual events could mimic or obscure a year. For the visible strata (and, we believe, for any other annual indicator at accumulation rates representative of central Greenland), it is almost certain that variability exists at the subseasonal or storm level, at the annual level, and for various longer periodicities (2-year, sunspot, etc.). We certainly must entertain the possibility of misidentifying the deposit of a large storm or a snow dune as an entire year or missing a weak indication of a summer and thus picking a 2-year interval as 1 year. ^{(Alley et al. Visual-stratigraphic dating of the GISP2 ice core: basis, reproducibility, and application, J. Geophysical Research 102 (c12):26367–26381, 1997.)}

For more on the post flood theory of the Ice age, and ice core dating, a good reference is An Ice Age Caused by the Genesis Flood, Michael J. Oard, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, Ca, 1990.  Also see The Frozen Record  by Michael J. Oard, June 2005, Institute for Creation Research,  El Cajon, CA.  In these books Oard covers the evidence that there was just one ice age, and it was not as long ago as in the conventional view.
More articles showing this evidence are:
What caused the Ice age?
Astronomical troubles for the Astronomical Hypothesis of the Ice ages

An article showing the circularity of using Deep sea floor sediments dating and ice cores, by Dr. Jake Hebert, a physicist, can be found here:Circular Reasoning in the Dating of Deep Seafloor Sediments and Ice Cores: The Orbital Tuning Method
Other articles on the ice age and ice core dating:
Are the Greenland & Antarctic Ice Sheets Old?
Ice Cores, Seafloor Sediments, and the Age of the Earth (part 3)
Greenland Ice Cores: implicit evidence for catastrophic deposition
For other old earth evidences involving layers of rocks and various geological features, see my upcoming series of articles on Noah’s Flood.

In the final article in this series, we will look at the issue of distant starlight and the age of the universe.

"The first thing to note is that the context has nothing to do with the days of creation. Also, it is not defining a day because it doesn’t say “a day is a thousand years”.

The correct understanding, as always, is derived from the context — the apostle Peter’s readers should not lose heart because God seems slow at fulfilling His promises about the second coming of Christ. Rather they are to remember that He is patient, and also because He is not bound by time as we are.

The text says “one day is like [or as] a thousand years” — the word “like” (or “as”) shows that it is a figure of speech, called a simile, to teach that God is outside of time (because He is the Creator of time itself). In fact, the figure of speech is so effective in its intended aim precisely because the day is literal and contrasts so vividly with 1,000 years — to the eternal Creator of time, a short period of time and a long period of time may as well be the same.

The fact that the passage is actually contrasting a short and long period can be shown by the fact that Peter is likely referring to Psalm 90:4 (Peter’s statement “do not forget” implies that his readers were expected to recall something, and this passage has this very teaching).

This reads: For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

This is synonymous parallelism, where a long period of a thousand years is contrasted with two short periods: a day, and a night watch. But those who try to use this verse to teach that the days of Genesis might be 1,000 years long forget the additional part in italics. For if they were consistent, they would have to say that a watch in the night here also means 1,000 years. It’s difficult to imagine that the same Psalmist is thinking on his bed for thousands of years (Ps. 63:6), or that his eyes stay open for thousands of years (Ps. 119:148).

The immediate context of the psalm is the frailty of mere mortal man in comparison to God. This verse amplifies the teaching, saying that no matter how long a time interval is from man’s time-bound perspective, it is like a twinkling of an eye from God’s eternal perspective." - Jonathan Sarfati

I don't think we should measure our time with God time! Since God time is rather timeless, and is not relegated to our 24 hour period. From God viewpoint 1000 years may be a day.

cush wrote:
I don't think we should measure our time with God time! Since God time is rather timeless, and is not relegated to our 24 hour period. From God viewpoint 1000 years may be a day.

The word YOM is actually a general term for time. It can mean either a 24-hour day or an indefinite period of time (such as days, weeks, months and years). We don't have a word like that in the Portuguese language.
How could it be possible for a Jew to determine whether the word YOM used in a text would have the meaning of a 24-hour day or not?
The answer is simple: by the Hebrew grammar. There are three specific cases.
If a numeral is related to the word YOM, such as "in the tenth YOM of the seventh month" (as in Leviticus 25: 9), the meaning of YOM will be a 24-hour day.
Or if a definite article is related to the word YOM, such as “the YOM of Atonement” (Leviticus 23:28), the meaning of YOM will be a 24-hour day.
Also, the expression “afternoon and morning” is always used to determine a 24-hour period (Exodus 18:13). When this expression is related to the word YOM, its meaning will be one day with 24 hours.
In all the verses in Genesis 1 where the word YOM was used - verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23 and 31 - the grammatical form used was: the expression “afternoon and morning” + the definite article + an ordinal number + YOM. This form with the three elements appearing simultaneously means that there is no other possible interpretation for the meaning of YOM other than a 24 hour period of time.
Grammatically speaking, the word YOM used in Genesis 1 can only be interpreted as a 24-hour day and not as long periods of time.
Some people have told me the following: But what about the text in II Peter 3: 8 that says: "... for the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day." ... A day for God can't it be like a thousand years? Couldn't the days of Genesis be eras instead of literal days?
It is important to note that the text of II Peter is not related to the text of Genesis 1. This is taking a text out of its context to try to establish a pretext. Those who study hermeneutics know this.
Let me show you why the days of Genesis can only be interpreted as literal. The text of Exodus 20: 8-10, the fourth commandment, shows this.
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. You will work six days and do all your work there, but the seventh day is the Sabbath dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day you will not do any work, neither you nor yours. sons or daughters, neither your male or female servants, nor your animals, nor the foreigners who live in your cities. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything in them, but on the seventh day he rested Therefore, the Lord blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. ”
The word "day" used here is YOM. So how long should each of these six days of work be? How could anyone know the correct meaning? None of the three ways to identify the term YOM as a 24-hour period appears in this text.
So, should we work “thousands of years” days? Of course not! Why not?
We know that YOM in this text means a 24-hour day. But how? The answer is in verse 10.
God commands through the fourth commandment that we work six days out of 24 hours, just as He worked six days out of 24 hours. The text is clear. Notice the conjunction “for” at the beginning of verse 10 linking the 6 YOMs that we are to work with the 6 YOMs that God has worked with.