New scientific discoveries are pointing to a much younger earth. One that is 6,000 to 10,000 years old. This is the second post in this series showing the evidence for a young earth.

The faint young sun paradox: The Sun derives energy by the thermonuclear conversion of hydrogen into helium. Over the Sun’s lifetime, the thermonuclear reactions would, according to theory, gradually change the composition of the core of the Sun and alter the Sun’s overall physical structure. Because of this process, the Sun would gradually grow brighter with age. Thus, if the Sun is indeed 4.6 billion years old, it should have brightened by nearly 40% over this time. This means that if billions of years were true, the sun would have been much fainter in the past. However, there is no evidence that the sun was fainter at any time in the earth’s history. Astronomers call this the ‘faint young sun paradox’, but it is no paradox at all if the sun is only as old as the Bible says—about 6,000 years.

Evolutionists believe that life appeared on the earth about 3.8 billion years ago. But if that timescale were true, the sun would be 25% brighter today than it was back then. This implies that the earth would have been frozen at an average temperature of –3ºC. However, most paleontologists believe that, if anything, the earth was warmer in the past. (Jonathan Sarfati, Our Steady Sun: A  Problem For Billions of Years)

The Solar Neutrino Problem: The sun shines from nuclear fusion in its core. Solar neutrinos are produced in the Sun as a product of this fusion. In 1968 it was discovered that the Sun was emitting hardly any neutrinos. If the earth is as old as evolutionists claim, these neutrinos should be radiating outward from the Sun in very large amounts, but this is not happening. Which points to a young Sun. (Vance Ferrell, Science Vs Evolution)

This lack of neutrinos, plus the discovery that the Sun is shrinking, (last week’s post), and the faint young Sun paradox, all point to a very young Sun.

Magnetic field supports a young earth: The earth’s magnetic field was caused by a decaying electric current in the earth’s metallic core. A strong magnetic field is crucial for life on earth. While the magnetic field is important for navigation, it is even more important in protecting the earth by forming a protective shield around the earth. This magnetic field protects us from dangerous cosmic radiation particles that are constantly bombarding us from the sun. It is also powerful evidence that the earth could not be older than about 10,000 years.

In 1835 the German physicist, K.F. Gauss, made the first measurement of the earth’s magnetic dipole moment; that is, the strength of earth’s internal magnet. Additional evaluations have been carried out every decade or so since then. Since 1835, global magnetism has decreased 14 percent!

Physics professor Dr. Thomas Barnes noted that measurements since 1835 have shown that the field is decaying at 5% per century. “Archaeological measurements show that the field was 40% stronger in AD 1000 than today.”

It has been calculated that the half-life of the magnetic field is about 1,400 years, this means that it loses half of its strength every 1,400 years. If the earth was as old as the evolutionist claim the magnetic field would be non-existence and life on earth would not be possible.

“The earth’s magnetism is running down. This worldwide phenomenon could not have been going on for more than a few thousand years, despite swapping direction many times. Evolutionary theories are not able to explain properly how the magnetism could sustain itself for billions of years.” (Sarfati, Jonathan, The earth’s magnetic field: evidence that the earth is young)

    “In the next two millennia, if the present rate of decay is sustained, the dipole component of the [earth’s magnetic] field should reach zero.”—(Scientific American, December 1989).

This magnetic decay process is not a local process, it affects the entire earth. It has been accurately measured for over 150 years and is not subject to environmental changes since it is generated deep in the earth’s interior.

The decay rate indicates an upper limit of decidedly less than 10,000 years for the age of the earth.  For even 7000 years ago, the earth would have had a magnetic field 32 times stronger than it now has.  It would appear that the earth could not be over 6000 or 7000 years old. 

Helium in the rocks:  The radioactive decay of uranium and thorium contained in rocks, produces large amounts of helium. Because helium is the second lightest element, and it does not combine with other atoms, it readily leaks out and eventually escapes into the atmosphere. Helium diffuses and leaks out so rapidly that if the earth is as old as evolutionist claim, all the helium should have leaked out of the earth’s rocks billions of years ago. However, the rocks still contain large amounts of helium, proving the Bible to be a more accurate source for determining the earth’s age.

    “While drilling deep Precambrian (pre-Flood) granitic rocks in New Mexico, geologists extracted samples of zircon crystals…… The crystals contained not only uranium but also large amounts of helium…….. Up to 58% of the helium that the uranium could have ever generated was still present in the crystals

    “The helium leakage rate has been determined in several experiments. All measurements are in agreement. Helium diffuses so rapidly that all the helium in these zircon crystals should have leaked out in less than 100,000 years. The fact that so much helium is still there means they cannot be 1.5 billion years old, as uranium-lead dating suggests. Indeed, using the measured rate of helium diffusion, these pre-Flood rocks have an average “diffusion age” of only 6,000 (± 2,000) years.” ( Snelling, Andrew, Helium in Radioactive Rocks)

Helium in the Atmosphere: There are vast amounts of helium below the earth’s crust.  Helium being an extremely light gas. It is constantly seeping out of the earth and into our atmosphere. Some helium escapes into space, however, this amount is much less than what is being released into the atmosphere. Scientists are able to calculate the volume of helium atoms present in the atmosphere by allowing for the difference in what is released into the atmosphere and what is escaping into space, scientists are able to determine the length of time required for the present volume of helium to accumulate.

The present amount of helium in the atmosphere would accumulate in about two million years. While this is much longer than the Biblical age of the earth, we do not know the original quantity of helium. God created the earth for mankind. It is likely he would have had helium present in the atmosphere from the very beginning. It is probable that the initial conditions were very similar to those of today, although minor changes in the helium concentration may have occurred since the creation of the atmosphere. It is also possible that significant changes could have occurred during and immediately following the Flood.

Evolutionists speculate that there was no helium initially because the atmosphere was yet to form. If there was no helium present in the atmosphere initially, and the present rate of flow of helium from the earth’s crust had occurred for 4.5 billion years, as the long-age evolutionary model suggests, the total mass of helium in the atmosphere would be about 2,000 times the quantity actually present in our atmosphere. The present low concentration of helium would suggest that the earth’s atmosphere must be quite young. (Larry Vardiman, The Age of the Earth’s Atmosphere Estimated by its Helium Content)

Solar Drag:  Our sun exerts a solar drag on the small rocks and larger particles (micrometeoroids) in our solar system. This causes these particles to spiral down into the sun and be destroyed. The sun, acting like a giant vacuum cleaner, sweeps up about 100,000 tons of micrometeoroids each day. The actual process by which this occurs has been analyzed. Each particle absorbs energy from the sun and then re-radiates it in all directions. This causes a slowing down of the particle in its orbit and causes it to fall into the sun. At its present rate, our sun would have cleaned up most of the particles in less than 10,000 years, and all of it within 50,000 years. Yet there is an abundance of these small pieces of rock, and there is no known source of replenishment.

The Mississippi River Delta:  The Mississippi-Missouri river system is the longest in the world and is about 4221 miles in length. The river dumps over 20 million cubic yards of mud into the Gulf of Mexico every year, at the point where the river enters the gulf. Yet, for the amount of sediment dumping that occurs, the Mississippi delta is not very large. Congress commissioned General Andrew A. Humphreys to make a survey of the whole area. It was completed in 1861. The English evolutionist, Charles Lyell, had earlier made a superficial examination of the river and its delta and declared the river system to be 60,000 years old since. He said the delta was 528 feet deep. But Humphreys showed that the actual depth of the delta was only 40 feet. Below that was the blue clay of the Gulf, and below that, marine fossils. His discovery revealed that the lower Mississippi valley used to be a marine estuary. Using Lyell’s formula for age computation, Humphreys arrived at an age of about 4620 years, which would be approximately the time of the Genesis Flood.

The standard secular timeline is that the earth is some 4.6 billion years old. The theory of an old earth is in direct contrast to what the Bible teaches. The Bible gives us a chronological and genealogical history of people and events beginning from the time of creation, throughout history, making the earth a little over 6000 years old. An old earth is important for the evolutionists. They believe that given enough time, anything is possible, even evolution. There is a lot of controversy over the various dating methods; many have been shown to be in error by millions of years. I will be deal with these in later posts.

To see previous posts on this subject go to www.jerryblount.com

Watch for next week’s post: “Part 3 – It’s a Young Earth After All”

Information for this post is from my upcoming book “Noah and The Great flood: The Proof and Effects of It”