Spokane Chapter, Reasons To Believe

December, 2004 Newsletter

Table of Contents:

No Chapter Meeting Scheduled for December

We’ve decided to take a break this month, since it’s always so busy! Our January, 2005 meeting will probably be Sunday, January 16. We wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and look forward to seeing you in January!

Evidence for an Old Earth: Ice Cores and Coral Layers

Part 2 - By Damien Spillane, RTB – Australia

Witness 3 – Ice Cores in Greenland

There are two ice cores drilled in Greenland called the Greenland Ice Sheet Project (GISP) and the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) both 30 km apart and nearly 3 km deep giving the same paleo-environmental record back to 110,000 years ago. The ice layers tend to trap tiny bubbles of air, including the impurities that are indicative of volcanic eruptions and other climatic events. An example would be the oxygen isotope ratios of the heavier oxygen- 18 to the lighter oxygen-16. As the temperature increases, the heavier isotopes would be more readily precipitated (as part of H2O) than the lighter isotopes and thus the ratio of oxygen isotopes found in air bubbles in the ice provide a signature for past climate changes.

Deuterium, also known as Hydrogen-2 is another isotope that provides clues for temperature ranges at each period represented by the respective ice core layers. Studies of CO2 levels in the trapped air bubbles in the ice has enabled scientists to plot the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over recent millennia. Increases in acidity are the hall-mark for volcanic eruptions such as the eruption at Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Evidence for this eruption shows up in the Greenland ice core. Historically documented events like Vesuvius serve as independent tools to date the layers of ice. Though the eruption was less than 2000 years ago and thus not long enough to discriminate between young and old earth creation models, it does provide us with great confidence that the ice layers are accurate recorders of time. Hence the layers that precede A.D 79 to a time of 100,000 years ago can be accepted as accurate.

More extensive, though less detailed ice cores were those drilled at the Vostok Station, Antarctica to a depth of more than 3.5 km. Placed in the Antarctica region on the opposite side of the globe, this study affords an excellent position for strategic sampling of past global climatic trends. The project was a joint initiative of Russia, France and the USA. The snowfall record reaches back to 420,000 years ago, yielding data on dust and sea salt levels, aerosols and global levels of methane and carbon dioxide. Climate details such as oxygen isotope abundances correlate nicely with the GISP2 levels. Some of the age measurements from different research groups are as follows:

Six measurements at 1934m:

  • 136,758 years (Sowers)
  • 141,804 years (Lorius)
  • 137,725 years (Jouzel-1)
  • 135,018 years (Jouzel-2)
  • 140,243 years (Waelbroeck)
  • 135,507 years (Petit)

Five measurements at 2082m:

  • 164,433 years (Lorius)
  • 155,785 years (Jouzel-1)
  • 150,957 years (Jouzel-2)
  • 152,239 years (Waelbroeck)
  • 151,721 years (Petit)

Four measurements at 2757m:

  • 261,787 years (Jouzel-1)
  • 242,235 years (Jouzel-2)
  • 243,004 years (Waelbroeck)
  • 237,975 years (Petit)

We can also collaborate the Milankovitch astronomical cycles with the climate variations that we observe in ice and marine cores. The earth’s surface records the processes that astronomers predict from variations in the earth’s orbit eccentricity (where the orbit deviates from circular) every 100,000 years, obliquity (a slight variation in the  Earth’s 23.5 degree tilt) every 41,000 years and precession (where the degree of Earth’s angular tilt remains the same only the direction of the axial tilt is altered like the wobbling of a spinning top as it slows down) every 23,000 years. These variations manifest in the form of climatic shifts and can be catalogued in the various ice and sedimentary layers layered down on Earth.

Ref: Sigfús J. Johnsen The Greenland Ice Core Records 2002: http://www.gsf.fi/esf_holivar/ johnsen.pdf

Vostok Ice Core NOAA Paleoclimatology Program 1998: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok.html and  Vostok Time Scales: ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/ paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_time.txt

Witness 4 – Coral Layers

Like the layers of tree rings coral layers vary in density according to seasonal changes. The unique gift they offer to researches is that they not only present us with annual bands but also daily bands. In other words, for every yearly band found we also detect 365 daily bands. This is an indirect way of telling us that the lengths of each day are 24 hours long. Astronomers have made measurements using atomic clocks on the rate of deceleration of the rotation period of Earth. The results present a deceleration time of 0.000015 sec per day. Although we would have reason to expect fluctuations in this rate we can estimate that at 10 million years ago the length of a day would have been approximately 200 seconds less. Extrapolating from this figure back we would expect the Devonian period (360 – 410 million years ago) to be characterized by days of 21.8 hours in length or 400 days per year.

Ancient coral layers dated to the Devonian era via thorium 230 and protactinium 231 radiometric methods provide an independent test for the astronomical calculations mentioned. The exciting discovery from ancient coral was that daily growth lines counted between the extreme values of 385 and 410 leaving us with an average for that period that correlates very well with the astronomical methods. Coral from the Pennsylvanian (late Carboniferous: 290 – 325 million years ago) era from two different geographical regions gave 390 and 385 lines per annum. These results imply that the lengths of each day have increased as the earth has slowed down over the 100 million years since the Devonian period and provide further collaborative support for uniformitarian processes.

Ref: John Wells Coral Growth and Geochronometry 1963, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~springport/geology/coral_growth.html 

Thus ends our exploration of just a small sample of evidences for the antiquity of our planet. Note the different and independent processes used to yield highly concordant details on climate and chronology that extend well beyond the time limit held to by young earth creationism. Many of the processes were not reliant on radiometric decay though their age diagnoses were in good agreement with that method. I also selected the processes that are independent from one another as evidence for old age. Tree rings have nothing to do with varve layers that have nothing to do with Vostok ice core layers which do not depend upon the two fold witness of coral layers and astronomical calculations on Earth spin down rate.

It hardly surprises me that so many in the academic community find the Bible hard to accept as factual when they perceive Christians as believing in science that holds as much credence as a flat Earth. I wonder how many searching souls have stopped short of the gospel thanks to the total incongruity that they recognize between young-earth creationism and science. Perhaps people in these contexts will still make decisions for the Christian faith but all too many will be based on emotion rather than the rational truths that make up our worldview. Unfortunately and ironically, organizations that are vigorously promoting young earth creationism are oblivious to the fact that their creation model is contributing to the rejection of the Bible as a historical document.

New Discovery

The exceptionally thick Antarctic ice have provided researchers with an opportunity to drill a core 3 km deep into Dome C, high on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet1 2 3 According to the report, the earth has experienced 8 ice ages throughout the last 740,000 years. The study confirmed that the obliquity cycle and the eccentricity cycle that occur every 41,000 and 100,000 years respectively have a major influence on climatic conditions. This study reveals even more headaches for a young earth creation model since the core now reaches further back in time than ever before and receives collaboration from various astronomical cycles. This study also supported evidence from prior research that the last 10,000 years of human history (Holocene period) has been exceptionally benign climatically, providing a unique environment for human civilization to flourish.

For further insights on these topics I highly recommend ‘A Matter of Days’ by Hugh Ross, and ‘Science and Faith: Friends or Foes’ by John Collins.

  1. Laurent Augustin, et al., “Eight Glacial Cycles from an Antarctic Ice Core,”Nature 429 (2004), 623-628.
  2. Jerry F. McManus, “A Great Grand-Daddy of Ice Cores,” Nature 429 (2004), 611-612.
  3. Gabrielle Walker, “Frozen Time,” Nature 429 (2004), 596-597.

This article was written by Damien Spillane, RTB – Australia, with a few edits by Cathy Bakken, newsletter editor, Reasons to Believe Spokane.

Water Striders: Cool Bugs!

We always thought water striders were cool when we were kids, but scientists are only now discovering just how finely designed they are.

Water striders are those little bugs that land and float on water. We thought they could do so because the surface tension is very great between the ends of its legs and the water,

However, Chinese scientists recently found that it has much more to do with the design of the striders’ legs and leg hair than surface tension. The legs are covered with many strategically oriented hairs, each hair outfitted with exquisitely designed nanogrooves. The nanogrooves eject about 300 times more water (by volume) than the volume of the leg. It is this amazing water repellency that enables the striders to stand and walk so easily over water. This design points to a supernatural Creator!

Sources: Nature, Nov 4, 2004, p. 36, under “Brief Commutations”. Also, Today’s New Reason to Believe, December 10, 2004.

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Contact Information

For more information about the Reasons To Believe Spokane Chapter, contact:

  • Phone: Ray Luse (509) 465-8562
  • Email:
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  • Newsletter Questions? Cathy Bakken, editor, cgbakken@yahoo.com

Resources To Know About:

Reasons To Believe Website: www.reasons.org. Many useful documents are available, as well as their daily new “reason to believe” from the latest scientific research.

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Reasons Institute. RTB’s online distance learning program. Take college-level apologetics courses. Contact RTB for information at 626-335-1480. www.reasonsinstitute.com.

Reasons To Believe television show. Thursday mornings, 3:00 A.M. Pacific time on TBN. An archive of recent shows is at www.reasons.org.

Creation Update Web Radio Show. http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/creation_update/Archives.asp.