Is there scientific evidence that Coal is much younger than originally believed?

Answer 1

chas chas 123 has been bamboozled by those with an objective to destroy science...

Half life by definition means that half the C-14 atoms exist after their half life than what were there before... So in 2 half lives, there's a quarter of the C-14 atoms to C12 atoms left...

Because of this and because of fluctuations in solar radiation in earth's past, C-14 dating is only accurate to 55,000 years (sometimes to 75,000 years).

Many methods are used for dating coal, not just C-14 and not just other radiometric methods... A fine article exists on this for all you Creationists on your very own web site...

http://www.answersincreation.org/dating.htm

Answer 2

No. Short answer. Coal is interspersed within the geological column. The column, which is extremely well studied as it is the basis of the petroleum industry, is dated by methods such as K/Ar, Ar/Ar and Pb/Ur radiometric dating. The different methods, based on different experimentally observed rates of **logarithmic** decay (note emphasis on logarithmic), produce consistent ages for any part of the column . Hence there is a simple mathematical 'proof' of the method. Also, the ages are consistent with other methods, such as fission track dating, thermoluminescence dating, paleomagnetism, milankovitch cyclicity etc etc.

Organic rich rocks such as coal are often relatively enriched in uranium and thorium. Carbon-14 is produced by the uranium-thorium decay series. Hence, if you "carbon-dated" such coal, you would expect to get a relatively young "age". But this would be because of an inappropriate use of the method. Carbon dating is based on the production of Carbon-14 from Nitrogen-14 in the atmosphere, not the very slow decay of uranium underground.

Answer 3

One of my friends here in Japan is a retired Coal Master Engineer from the early days. He knows everything there is to know about coal, where it is and how old it is.
The age of all the coal known here on earth is very well defined mainly because the difference in the coal determines its value.
No one likes to be cheated when investing millions in hopes of making billions. These people do their home work and do not rely on anyone's guesses.
Coal is very old plant material laid down in forests and swamps over the course of millions of years. This all happened long before the dinosaurs. The best coal is that which filled in huge lakes and oceans with nothing but dead plants on top of dead plants. The weight of the pile squeezed out the water in the bottom layers.
Millions more years and floods filled in layers of dirt on top of the plants.
Many layers of coal are only one or two meters thick.
The plants covered with dirt continued to rot and the active bacteria use up any oxygen available to build hydro carbon mass we call coal.
The best coal is the hard shiny black Anthracite, it burns hot and clean. Some coal has a high sulfur content and when it is burned the sulfur goes up the stack, meets moisture in the air and combines to make H2SO4 known to you as Sulfuric acid,
Or Acid Rain.
Sorry I got beyond your Question..
By the way, if coal is ever found on any other planet then there was or is life on that planet.
Mark

Answer 4

No, quite the opposite.

Originally, in 1650 before science played much of a role in such things, Archbishop James Ussher placed the date of creation at Sunday 23 October, 4004 B.C. by adding ages found in the Bible. Coal would have been assumed to be younger thn that, as it would have been formed during God's failed attempt to destroy the Earth in a global flood according to that mythos. According to Answers in Genesis, this places the date for the formation of all sedimentary rock when it claims: "Biblical data places the Flood at 2304 BC +/- 11 years." That's would mean all coal is slightly younger than the Fifth dynasty of Egypt, the Valley Temple of Khafra in Giza, and many other buildings and cities built on to of the supposed "Noachian Deluge" sediments.


Later, men like Buffon, Lyell, Kelvin, and Joly calculated various ages from 75,000 years to 240 million years based on cooling rates, salt deposition, and accumulation of fossil mollusks.

About 100 years ago, Rutherford and Boltwood finally found what amounts to a stopwatch... radioactive decay. Since then other methods like the red shift of light from stars (by the famed Edwin Hubble and others) has vindicated the data from radiometric methods.

So as you can see, as the sciences matured the dates figured for the various ages of different coal deposits increased. In the past 100 years the main changes to these dates have been refining the accuracy to narrow the age ranges given to a particular sample. Rarely does a new finding give an age outside the margin of error of the next most recent finding.

However, in attempts to perpetuate religious dogma some people cling to the remnants of thouroghly debunked ideas that were based on unreliable data 350 years ago. They repeat laughable 'new' data like "polystrate" fossils invented in the warped minds of felons like Hovind that were also debunked decades ago when they first popped up in the coffee table books and "inspirational" videos the charlatans from the various religious institutes sell to their unwitting audience. Never do they appear in a peer reviewed publication, unless you count the few journals published by Evangelical Fundamentalist churches and having requirements that all reports published must agree with the notion that the Earth is unrealistically young.

Then again, maybe almost every working geologist in the past century has been completely wrong and the handful of self-appointed amatuer "experts" like Hovind, Behe, and Weiland are right to base their science on remnants of ancient Hebrew myths of dubious origin.

Answer 5

Coal, like oil, can be made in the lab from plant debris. All you need to do is add a lot of heat and pressure. As for the age you can look at polystrata fossils and petrified trees that run through different layers in coal to know those layers cannot be millions of years old. Trees are already petrifying in the vertical position at the bottom of Spirit Lake, near Mount St. Helens.
The Antediluvian world had more land and richer vegetation than Post-flood world. No current dating method, like carbon-14 and potassium-argon, is accurate and reliable. Most evolutionary scientists are so desperate to find evidence for an old earth that they will reject any contradictory evidence. Don't just accept everything they tell you. Learn to think critically. A critical mind will learn more than an open one. Get educated, not indoctrinated...

Answer 6

There probably is. Sorry, I don't have the specific information you seek right now, but I'm sure someone here will have it.

But even if coal is much younger than we originally thought of, there is no way of replenishing the supply anyway!
Even if it's younger, it has still got to be at least a couple of thousand years, so...we should switch to hydrogen power.

Sorry for not particularly helping you today!

Answer 7

I have not heard of any such thing. Creationists try to invent such silly stuff, of course. If someone said it, it was probably Henry Morris or another creationist who is concerned with perpetuating his outmoded beliefs, rather than the truth.

Answer 8

Coal is widely believed to be millions of years old.

However *all* coal deposits contain carbon 14. This is troubling to evolutionists and their millions/billions of years timescale for the history of earth.
Carbon 14 has a half life of about 5700 years. After 100000 years there should be no traces left whatsoever. Note this provides an upper limit on the age of coal, not its actual age.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/735
Even diamonds have carbon 14!
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4650/

A much better explanation of the coal deposits is the global flood.
Why else would they contain complete tree stumps? They clearly did not get laid down slowly.
Lots of articles on coal formation (and other geology) here.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3007/

Answer 9

Not to my knowledge. Unless, of course, it was put there by God to test our faith.

Answer 10

I am not sure but i will ask god and get back to you