Polonium haloes indicate a young earth

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Contents 1 Claim 2 Sources 3 Responses 4 Fallacies contained in this claim 5 External Links 6 References 7 Further Reading 8 Related claims 9 Acknowledgments

Claim

Some micas in granite have tiny haloes caused by the decay of radioactive elements. From their diameters, we know the energy of the alpha particles which caused the haloes, which tells us what element decayed. Some of these haloes formed from isotopes of polonium, all of which have short half-lives (138 days for the longest-lived isotope). According to conventional geology, the rocks in which the polonium radiohaloes occur took millions of years to form. All of the original polonium should have decayed in that time. Thus polonium radiohaloes indicate a sudden creation of polonium in rock.

Sources

• Gentry, R. V., 1988. Creation's Tiny Mystery, Earth Science Associates, Knoxville, TN.
• Snelling, A. A., 2000 (Aug.). Polonium radiohaloes: Still "a very tiny mystery". Impact #326, i-iv.

Responses

1. Polonium is a decay product of radon, which in turn is a decay product of uranium. Radon, being a gas, can diffuse through cracks in the rocks. As a result, Polonium haloes are found only around the cracks in uranium minerals. What Gentry calls "assumptions" about original isotope proportions is actually a necessary consequence from the polonium generation process. Gentry's isotope proportions don't make sense.
2. To reconcile his young earth hypothesis with the fact that the decay rates of numerous elements have been used to demonstrate a very old Earth, Gentry postulates (without evidence) that decay rates were much higher in the recent past. Not only would this accelerated decay need to affect different isotopes differently, Gentry inexplicably assumes that the decay rates for isotopes of polonium were not affected. In actuality, once the idea of inconsistent decay rates (and therefore decay energies) is introduced, the whole idea that you can assign a specific halo size to a specific isotope becomes impossible.
3. If Gentry's hypothesis is correct, then haloes associated with all polonium isotopes should be present in equal abundance. However, Gentry does not report the presence of haloes corresponding to the decay of polonium-215 and polonium-211 (uranium-235 decay series); or polonium-216 and polonium-212 (thorium-232 decay series). Brawley (1992) has an explanation for this discrepancy that is wholly in keeping with current geologic theory for an ancient Earth.
4. add more responses

Fallacies contained in this claim

• Suppressed Evidence (the unmentioned fact that polonium is generated by uranium decay destroys the claim)

External Links

• Mark Isaak's page for this claim [1]
• CreationWiki's comments [2]
• Brawley, John, 1992. Evolution's Tiny Violences: The Po-Halo Mystery. [3]

References

1. Brawley, John, 1992. See above.
2. Gentry, R. V., 1988. Creation's Tiny Mystery, Earth Science Associates, Knoxville, TN.
3. Wakefield, J.R., 1998. See below.

Further Reading

• Wakefield, J. Richard, 1998 (May). Geology of Gentry's "Tiny Mystery". Journal of Geological Education, [4]
• Collins, Lorence, 1997. Polonium halos and myrmekite in pegmatite and granite. [5]
• Baillieul, Thomas, 2005, "Polonium Haloes" Refuted: A Review of "Radioactive Halos in a radio- Chronological and Cosmological Perspective" by Robert V. Gentry, Talk Origins archive, [6].

Related claims

• Radiometric dating falsely assumes rates are constant
• Short-lived isotopes Th-230 and U-236 exist on the moon

Acknowledgments

• Cubist