scottidee

ICR: Helium Escape Problem

{RvFvS: Plagiarized & copyrighted material removed.}

tgamble

That has nothing to do with evolution. I doubt it has much to do with the uniformiarian view either.

There is no evolutionary model to explain helium. Evolution has nothing to do with it!

Actually, the helium problem isn't really a problem at all. If the argument was accurate, it would also be a problem for the absurd claim of a 6000 year old earth.

http://www.geocities.com/kenthovind/1proofs2.html#14

Young-earth "proof" #14: The amount of helium in the atmosphere divided by its formation rate on Earth gives only 175,000 years.
14. The age of 175,000 years is a little steep for creationist purposes, so Dr. Hovind informs us that "God must have started the earth with some." Heaven forbid that the earth should be older than about 7000 years!

Helium-4 is the product of radioactive alpha decay whereas Helium-3 is primordial. The rates of their "production" are simply the rates of their escape from within the earth to the atmosphere.

The whole argument hinges on Helium-4 remaining in the atmosphere. A fair amount of helium is lost from the earth's atmosphere by simply being heated up in the elevated temperature of the exosphere (Dalrymple, 1984, p.112).

The exosphere is the outermost layer of our atmosphere, beginning after the ionosphere at about 300 miles above the earth. When a lightweight helium atom is heated up, especially Helium-3 which is even lighter than Helium-4, it can easily pick up enough speed to escape Earth's gravity altogether and head off into outer space. Heating gas is a little like swatting rubber balls with a paddle; the lighter balls travel a lot faster after being swatted. In this manner about half of the Helium-3 produced is lost to outer space. The amount of the heavier Helium-4 lost by this method appears to be far short of the amount produced. Hence, the point of Morris' argument which is based on calculations by Cook. However, there are other mechanisms of helium escape which Morris and Cook have overlooked. Creationist Larry Vardiman (ICR Impact series, No.143, May 1985) at least recognizes some of these factors. However, he has not fully addressed the matter, let alone proven that the earth is young.

The most probable mechanism for helium loss is photoionization of helium by the polar wind and its escape along open lines of the Earth's magnetic field. Banks and Holzer [1969] have shown that the polar wind can account for an escape of 2 to 4 x 10^6 ions/cm^2 sec of Helium-4, which is nearly identical to the estimated production flux of (2.5 +-1.5) 10^6 atoms/cm^2 sec. Calculations for Helium-3 lead to similar results, i.e., a rate virtually identical to the production flux.

Another possible escape mechanism is direct interaction of the solar wind with the upper atmosphere during the short periods of lower magnetic-field intensity while the field is reversing. Sheldon and Kern [1972] estimated that 20 geomagnetic-field reversals over the past 3.5 million years would have assured a balance between helium production and loss. (Dalrymple, 1984, p.112)

Dr. Dalrymple goes on to explain that even though our understanding of the helium balance in the atmosphere is incomplete, the situation being very complicated because of various hard-to-calculate factors, we do know one thing. "...it is clear that helium can and does escape from the atmosphere in amounts sufficient to balance production." (1984, p.113)

Thus, the helium balance calculations provided by creationist Melvin Cook (which are used by Henry Morris) cannot provide a reliable minimum estimate of the earth's age. Their argument is a fatal oversimplification of a complex problem.

Another version of the helium argument for a young earth is based on the estimated production of Helium-4 by radioactive decay. The creationist then asks why so little of that amount is found in the atmosphere. The answer to that one is that the same escape mechanisms listed above apply once the helium-4 works its way out of the rock and into the atmosphere. The rock traps it for a time and slows its release.

MrDarwin

So... do you have anything original of your own to add, or are you content to shamelessly plagiarize somebody else's words from this website?

Undercurrent

I've seen this one done also as, "there's too much helium in the atmosphere! if the earth was old, why hasn't it all outgassed?"

Creationists can't agree on whether the proportion of helium is to large or too small for a young earth, but insist it must be wrong somehow.

m.

Mageth

Mods, the OP is a blatant, uncredited cut-and-paste from ICR, which has a strict copyright policy.

(I see MrDarwin already caught that...)

And I just noted the irony of the title of this thread. "Missing links", indeed!

DrLao

More like an intentional joke on the part of the moderators. The thread title was changed. The original title was "Missing Helium for Evolutionists."

RufusAtticus

Hmm????? Twant me

DrLao

Well, somebody did it. Notice that the subject of the OP and the thread title are different? I don't think that is possible in vB without editing.

scigirl

Very strange...

I started a thread to see if I could change the title that appears on the E/C home page, but yet keep the title the same in the thread. I could not.

Investigation into why the thread title is now different is now being avidly pursued (ok not avidly but it is a puzzle...)

scigirl

scigirl

No intentional joke to my knowledge. Besides, it isn't really that funny.

scigirl