Dating Lava Flows
In order to establish the accuracy of radiometric dating techniques, the increasingly popular method of dating million-plus-year-old rocks, geochronologists performed a series of critical radiometric age tests on rocks from historic lava flows in 1969. This is their list of flows with known dates and the theoretical ages the tests produced:
| Sample # | Lava Flow | Date | Age (years) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Hualalai | 1800 AD | 1,190,000 |
| 2. | Mt. Etna | 122 BC | 100,000 |
| 3. | Mt. Etna | 1792 AD | 150,000 |
| 4. | Mt. Lassen | 1915 BC | 130,000 |
| 5. | Sunset Crater | 1064 AD | 222,000 |
| 6. | Glass Mt. | 130-390 BP | -130,000 |
| 7. | Mt. Mihara | 1951 AD | -70,000 |
| 8. | Sakurajima | 1946 AD | -200,000 |
These historic lava flows of known provenance rendered radiometric dates ranging from negative 200,000 years (in the future) to a positive 1.9 million years (in the past). Based on modern geology’s geologic time scale, all of the ages should have shown near zero. The obvious question is that if we cannot correctly date rocks of known age—can the ‘experts’ reliably date ancient rocks of unknown age? Learn much more in the UM Age Model.