Can carbon dating be used for lava flows

Crete, the island which is inseparable from myths and legends, music and food tradition, is the ideal destination for your summer holidays! From the distant past to the present day, every place on the island has a very interesting story to tell. If you arrive at Heraklion, a place that you should visit is Anopolis! Anopolis Cretan nights combines a show inspired by the Greek history with the Greek musical tradition and the Cretan gastronomy! More than 22 actors take you back to the ancient Greece with many theatrical happenings. Traditional dishes, unlimited white and red wine and dancing with the actors with live band accompaniment are also all included in these unique nights!

Do analyses of the radioactive isotopes of rocks give reliable estimates of their ages? That is a good question, which ordinarily requires a lengthy and technical answer. Furthermore, we might begin by focusing our investigation to "wholerock" potassium-argon K-Ar and rubidium-strontium Rb-Sr techniques, the two most popular methods for dating rocks. Both the K-Ar and Rb-Sr methods make use of radioactive decay of a parent isotope to a stable daughter isotope. Potassium 40 K , common in minerals of volcanic rocks, decays to argon 40 Ar , a gas which can remain trapped within minerals of volcanic rocks. Rubidium 87 Rb , common in minerals of volcanic rocks, decays to strontium 87 Sr , an isotope which can remain fixed in the atomic lattice structure of common minerals in volcanic rocks. The decay relationshipof 40 K and 87 Rb can be expressed mathematically in terms of time, t, the number of years which have elapsed.

Until the mids, it was impossible to know when each of the flows occurred. However, as this video segment adapted from NOVA describes, scientists are now using tiny artifacts of life encased in hardened lava flows to piece together the mountain's complex geological and biological history. Flowing lava erases nearly everything in its path. An entire forest can be wiped out by streams of molten rock. In some circumstances however, a flow may encase a small amount of plant material before it is entirely incinerated.

Radiometric dating of rocks and minerals using naturally occurring, long-lived radioactive isotopes is troublesome for young-earth creationists because the techniques have provided overwhelming evidence of the antiquity of the earth and life. Some so-called creation scientists have attempted to show that radiometric dating does not work on theoretical grounds for example, Arndts and Overn ; Gill but such attempts invariably have fatal flaws see Dalrymple ; York and Dalrymple Other creationists have focused on instances in which radiometric dating seems to yield incorrect results. In most instances, these efforts are flawed because the authors have misunderstood or misrepresented the data they attempt to analyze for example, Woodmorappe ; Morris HM ; Morris JD Only rarely does a creationist actually find an incorrect radiometric result Austin ; Rugg and Austin that has not already been revealed and discussed in the scientific literature.