To the editor:

In June 2019 I inquired the Minnesota Geological Survey as to how they know the rocks are 3.6 billion years old which they reference on a bronze plaque located in Ramsey park in Redwood Falls.

They sent me two geochronology documents which detailed usage of high precision equipment with various techniques for determining age via interpretation of isotope ratios in zircon crystals within the granite sample.

Then I asked how they know:

1. The rock formation has remained a closed system during it’s entire history.

2. The initial concentration of parent or daughter isotope.

3. Decay rates have not varied throughout billions of years.

4. All parent and daughter isotopes are uniformly distributed in the rock formation.

I received an answer saying that geochronology tends to be built on multiple assumptions.

Those multiple assumptions cannot be upheld by the scientific method, and should not be presented as “fact” and cast in bronze for general public indoctrination.

Geochronology was used to analyze lava rock from Mt. Ngauruhoe in New Zealand known to be 60 years old; it came up with dates ranging from 270,000 to 3.5 billion years for isochron model analyzing K-Ar isotopes and 3.9 billion for Pb-Pb isotopes Obviously, this method does not even make a good hypothesis.

If the earth were billions of years old, then it’s magnetic field it should be gone by now, and we would be unprotected from harmful radiation. And if we extrapolate the field decay rate backwards, the earth would have been torn apart by intense magnetism only 10,000 years ago. Some of the planets have a similar situation.

Now lets move on to the carbon 14 method. Scientists tell us this method can measure back about 100,000 years; that is the point at which no more C14 can be detected in a sample. The method is based on comparing today’s ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 in our environment, with the ratio of C14 to C12 in the tested sample. C14’s half-life is 5,730 years.

Phil Drietz

Delhi