T or E

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That's a good question to save for Tom when he returns. I have little doubt that the mainstream model and EPH will differ on what caused the most recent period of active volcanism of Olympus Mons...
Neil
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I am out of my element here, but....There seem to be very few craters in the region, and the few that are there are on top of the mountain. One wonders if the craters were caused by objects with decaying orbits. Beyond that, the presumed timing of the EPH related impact might be younger than 65 million years ago.

I assume that these datings are based on radioactive half-lives. I disagree that radioactive half-lives are intrinsic to the isotope. The intensity of the exterior environment could alter the half-life. This is precisely why a fission bomb works. The other Pu-239 atoms are an outside influence upon each Pu-239 atom. We don't know what agents cause other types of radioactive decay (alpha, beta, gamma)but to call it intrinsive to the nucleus is to implicitly reject the concept of cause and effect.

Gregg Wilson

<i>Originally posted by Gregg </i><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">There seem to be very few craters in the region, and the few that are there are on top of the mountain.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
The EPH predicts less cratering in the present northern hemisphere than in the southern (see Tom's EPH paper in MR website). Also, it seems to me that a geologically recent erruption of OM and subsequent lava flow could be a factor.

Presumably, all artificial structures would have been made prior to most recent explosion event of 3.2 mya. Or were they; that's an interesting question.

Neil

Presumably, all artificial structures would have been made prior to most recent explosion event of 3.2 mya. Or were they; that's an interesting question.

Neil
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I don't question the 3.2 mya because, if I have my facts correct, that dating is based on the orbits of comets.

However, if the 65 mya is based on radioactive dating, then I question that.

Here is a little story. An alien ship arrives at Earth and lands in Idaho. The alien scientist knows nothing about Earth other that one can land on it. Searching around, it finds a burnt out campfire. Careful examination reveals two tiny embers which are slowly burning. Very precise measurement reveals how slow their burning is. Additional measurement of all the ash leads the alien to compute that the burning must have started 7 years ago. In fact, the campfire was started yesterday.

Why the mismatch? Well, when the entire fire is burning, each ember receives radiative heat from all the other embers and the whole fire causes an air draft through the fire. Thus embers burn much faster because they are at a higher temperature and have a much faster oxygen supply.

In the careful measurements of radioactive half-lives, is this being done in the environment of a fast burning, nuclear reactor core? I think not.

When I worked at Hanford, a nuclear core extracted from a reactor was brought over to a processing mill where it was placed into a long train of previously reacted cores. Each core was given many weeks to "cool down" so it could be chemically processed. What are the real half-lives of radio-isotopes in these cores? No one knows.

I question half-lives measured at ambient conditions on the surface of the Earth. Therefore, I question radioactive datings which give 100 milions of years and billions of years.

My particular rant.

Gregg Wilson

<i>Originaly posted by Gregg </i><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I don't question the 3.2 mya because, if I have my facts correct, that dating is based on the orbits of comets.

However, if the 65 mya is based on radioactive dating, then I question that.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Is this healthy scepticism based on your experience, or is there a replacement theory that explains this? I would be interested especially if it affects the 65myr K/T boundry, and the related hypothesized explosion of Planet V. I think there is more than just radioactive half-life analysis involved, (such as geological strata measurements, etc.) but I could be wrong.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I question half-lives measured at ambient conditions on the surface of the Earth. Therefore, I question radioactive datings which give 100 milions of years and billions of years.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Specifically, do you think the EPH dates should be different, since of lot of the reasoning is based on this kind of data?

Neil

The fundamental assumption in radioactive decay theory is that the nature and lifespan is solely dependent on the natue of the radioisotope. That is, it is internal to the isotope and there is no outside factor.

I disagree with this assumption. If there were a solely internal mechanism, then all the nuclei of that particular isotope would decay at the same time. They don't, by a difference of billions of years!
(eg. this U-235 nucleus decays now but the U-235 nucleus next to it doesn't decay for another 300 million years.)

I propose that a radioactive isotope is not unstable, but is simply vulnerable to a collsion which can cause breakdown. When the right collision will occur is mere chance.

What is the difference between a stable isotope and a radioactive isotope? A stable isotope will have an "electron" repulsion pattern which repels outside agents from all directions. A radio-isotope does not have full coverage by "electron" repulsion. It has one or more "Achilles Heels" where an outside agent can collide with a portion of its nucleus and cause breakdown.

Is a "stable" isotope actually stable? No! They have accelerated protons to high velocity and used them to smash and breakdown completely stable nuclei! (This is one way to make tritium.)

Our arbitrary list of stable nuclei versus radioactive nuclei is made for our ambient conditions. With different conditions, such as the inner core of a planet, the list would be very different.

IMHO, all nuclei are stable. Some are simply more vulnerable to collision than others.

Gregg's SWAG

Gregg Wilson

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gregg</i>
<br />If there were a solely internal mechanism, then all the nuclei of that particular isotope would decay at the same time. They don't, by a difference of billions of years!
(eg. this U-235 nucleus decays now but the U-235 nucleus next to it doesn't decay for another 300 million years.)

I propose that a radioactive isotope is not unstable, but is simply vulnerable to a collsion which can cause breakdown. When the right collision will occur is mere chance.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Gregg, is that first statement really true? Isn't that the way statistics works? We can say that the rate of decay over large numbers of years, is a function of the particular isotope, without having to say anything about an individual atom, and it would still be "internal" to the isotope. Or, maybe a better way of saying it would be that it's a "characteristic" of the isotope.

If we flip a coin millions of times, half will be heads and half will be tails. But, you wouldn't want to bet your life on any one flip.

I'm curious, is this just a "pet peave" of yours, or are there others who doubt the veracity of dating by radioactive decay.

rd