The yearlong Genesis Flood deposited the world’s sedimentary rocks about 4,500 years ago, killing and entombing billions of living things during the process. Thus, the rocks and fossils are evidence not for evolution and millions of years, but for the Flood itself (Figure 1). Yet according to conventional scientists, the rocks and fossils are millions of years old, not thousands, and they have long used a technique called radioisotope dating to “prove” these ancient ages.

However, the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) research initiative, conducted by scientists from the Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Research Society, presented strong evidence that the basic assumptions behind radioisotope dating methods are flawed, rendering radiometric dates unreliable. The most important uniformitarian assumption in such methods is that nuclear decay rates have never been higher than they are now. But RATE scientists found evidence that nuclear decay rates were much faster at some time or times in the past. One of these periods was the Flood itself.^1,2 Tiny polonium (Po) radiohalos within Phanerozoic granites, conventionally dated as less than 541 million years old, are evidence for accelerated nuclear decay during the Flood.²

Radiohalos: Some Background

Creation physicist Robert V. Gentry was largely responsible for bringing radiohalos to the attention of the creationist community. Gentry pioneered techniques for identifying and studying these radiohalos and published on the subject in leading scientific journals.³ Gentry thought radiohalos were evidence of God’s instantaneous, supernatural creation of granite during Day 3 of creation week.^2–4 That view turned out to be incorrect, but his research and methods ultimately led to what is arguably an even more important discovery, described below.

Granite, Zircons, and Subatomic Bullets

Figure 2. A zircon crystal, viewed under an optical microscope

Image credit: Chd, CC BY-SA 3.0

Granite, like other igneous (or volcanic) rocks, forms as hot magma cools and solidifies. Most granites contain black flakes called biotite or black mica. Within many of the mica flakes are zirconium silicate (ZrSiO₄) crystals, also called zircons (Figure 2). As the magma cools, radioactive uranium-238 (²³⁸U) atoms sometimes take the place of zirconium (Zr) atoms as the crystal lattice forms.⁵

The ²³⁸U atoms embedded in a zircon crystal decay into lead-206 (²⁰⁶Pb) via a multistep decay process. During this process, eight α (alpha) particles, each consisting of two protons and two neutrons, are “shot out,” like subatomic bullets, from the radioactive nucleus in different directions.

These energetic alpha particles damage both the zircon and the surrounding mica, leaving trails of damage called alpha particle tracks. Each of the eight alpha particles has a different amount of energy, indicated by the different track lengths. The alpha particle with the greatest energy travels the farthest distance before stopping, while the alpha particle with the least energy travels the shortest distance.

If a large enough number of alpha particles are emitted from the many ²³⁸U atoms within a single zircon crystal, a spherical shell of discoloration called a radioactive halo, abbreviated as radiohalo, forms around the zircon (Figure 3, left). At today’s nuclear decay rates, it would take about 100 million years for a ²³⁸U radiohalo to be discernible. The greater the number of alpha particles, the greater the elapsed time and the darker the resulting discoloration. When mica flakes are viewed in thin sections under a microscope, these radiohalos appear as dark circles (Figure 3, right).

Polonium: Produced Slowly, but Decays Quickly

As the decay process advances, what was originally a ²³⁸U atom becomes a polonium-218 (²¹⁸Po) atom. At today’s decay rates, this takes a very long time. A measure of the time required is the half-life, i.e., the time for half of any given amount of a radioactive element to decay into its daughter product. The half-life for just the first step in this uranium-to-lead decay process is 4.47 billion years! However, ²¹⁸Po completes the remaining steps in the decay process much more quickly, emitting an additional alpha particle as ²¹⁸Po transforms into ²¹⁴Po, and another alpha particle as ²¹⁴Po transforms into ²¹⁰Po. The half-life of ²¹⁸Po is 3.1 minutes, the half-life of ²¹⁴Po is just 164 millionths of a second, and the half-life of ²¹⁰Po is 138 days. Thus, in just a matter of days, ²¹⁸Po emits alpha particles until finally becoming the stable isotope ²⁰⁶Pb, at which point the decay process is complete.

“Orphan” Polonium Radiohalos

Often less than a millimeter away from a ²³⁸U radiohalo, radiohalos within the mica were produced only by alpha particles emitted by decaying ²¹⁸Po, ²¹⁴Po, and ²¹⁰Po atoms (Figure 3, right). Unlike ²³⁸U radiohalos, which have eight distinct rings, one corresponding to the energy of each of the eight alpha particles in the decay chain, ²¹⁸Po, ²¹⁴Po, and ²¹⁰Po radiohalos consist of only three, two, and one ring(s), respectively.^{6 238}U is the only possible source for these polonium radiohalos, because these three polonium isotopes are naturally produced only by the radioactive decay of ²³⁸U. This means that these polonium atoms had to be quickly transported from their starting location inside a zircon to what would become the center of the “orphan” polonium radiohalo.

A Puzzling Paradox

But here is the puzzle: it takes hundreds of millions of years of uranium decay, at today’s rates, to produce enough polonium to form visible polonium radiohalos. This means that, in order to produce an orphan polonium radiohalo, a very large number of polonium atoms (whose production would normally take hundreds of millions of years) had to be rapidly produced and then quickly transported a short distance away to a single location, before they could form their radiohalos. Thus, all polonium radiohalos are a puzzling dilemma for uniformitarians. How could this happen?

Resolving the Paradox: Accelerated Decay and Hydrothermal Fluids

Figure 4 illustrates the resolution of this mystery.² Section (A) shows that due to accelerated nuclear decay during the Flood, ²³⁸U atoms in a zircon crystal quickly produce radioactive radon (Rn) and polonium (Po) atoms, which diffuse out of the zircon. Hydrothermal fluids (indicated by the black arrows) transport these atoms along the cleavage planes between the biotite sheets, and the radon quickly decays into polonium.⁷ The polonium atoms begin congregating at a particular site within the crystal lattice where there are lattice defects and stray sulfur and/or chlorine atoms to which polonium atoms chemically bind.

Per section (B), during the decay of both the uranium and polonium, alpha particles are emitted, but because the biotite has not yet fully cooled, the damage isn’t recorded. Continued ²³⁸U decay and fluid flow transports more Po atoms away from the ²³⁸U.

As seen in section (C), only after the biotite has cooled to below 150°C (around 300°F) does damage by emitted alpha particles produce radiohalos around both the zircon and the displaced orphan polonium atoms. Once the flow of hydrothermal fluids ceases, no more Po atoms are transported, and Po radiohalo production ceases.

Too Much Heat?

This explanation helps creationists address a serious objection to accelerated nuclear decay and to the Flood itself. Accelerated nuclear decay, along with the rapid tectonic activity during the Flood, would produce enormous amounts of heat. This heat would need to be safely dissipated somehow.

Creationists don’t yet have a definitive answer as to how God safely removed this excess heat, although they have made suggestions.^1,8 But polonium radiohalos provide strong evidence that it was removed. The radiohalos, zircons, and surrounding granite were not destroyed by excess heat. In fact, it has been experimentally demonstrated that the temperature of the biotite had to be below 150^°C; otherwise, the alpha particle tracks and radiohalos would have been annealed or erased.² This indicates that somehow, the tremendous amount of heat generated by accelerated decay was safely dissipated.

The short polonium half-lives also imply these granites had to cool in just a matter of days. The cooling of granites is seen by some as an unanswerable argument for a young earth, as their cooling has long been thought to take vast ages. This evidence shows that they instead cooled very quickly, and creationists have proposed possible mechanisms that might help expedite this cooling.⁹ However it occurred, the radiohalos show that rapid granite cooling did take place.

Lethal Amounts of Radiation?

Another serious objection is that accelerated nuclear decay would produce lethal amounts of radiation. However, there are times in biblical history during which accelerated nuclear decay could have plausibly occurred, with little to no danger to living things, such as the early part of creation week prior to God’s creation of plants and animals. Likewise, accelerated decay may have been part of God’s cursing of the ground at the time of the Fall.¹⁰ And as we have seen, there was a pulse of accelerated nuclear decay at the time of the Flood (and possibly for some time afterward), after which decay rates dropped down to their present-day levels.

God likely would not have placed harmful radioactive elements in the biosphere of His original “very good” (Genesis 1:31) creation. After the Fall, most radioactive elements probably remained safely sequestered deep in the earth’s interior until the time of the Flood.¹¹ Any radioactive exposure that living things received during and after the Flood came primarily from radioactive elements brought to the surface during that cataclysm. This may indeed have negatively affected living things, perhaps helping to shorten post-Flood lifespans (Genesis 11). However, since the Flood was God’s judgment on the world, this isn’t a problem for the creationist view.

Conclusion

Creation critics claim the cooling times for massive granites and the heat generated during the activity of the Flood rule out a literal Genesis. But they have seriously underestimated creation scientists, who anticipated and addressed these and other objections more than 20 years ago!¹ We have good scientific (not just theological) reasons to think God did in fact dissipate this excess heat during the Flood, although we don’t yet understand how He did it. And if creation critics believe nuclear decay rates have always been constant, how do they explain the “very tiny mystery” of polonium radiohalos?¹²

References

1. Humphreys, D. R. 2000. Accelerated Nuclear Decay: A Viable Hypothesis? In Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative. L. Vardiman, A. A. Snelling, and E. F. Chaffin, eds. El Cajon, CA, and St. Joseph, MO: Institute for Creation Research and Creation Research Society, 333–380.
2. Snelling, A. A. 2005. Radiohalos in Granites: Evidence for Accelerated Nuclear Decay. In Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative. L. Vardiman, A. A. Snelling, and E. F. Chaffin, eds. El Cajon, CA, and Chino Valley, AZ: Institute for Creation Research and Creation Research Society, 101–208.
3. Snelling, A. A. 2000. Radiohalos. In Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: A Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative. L. Vardiman, A. A. Snelling, and E. F. Chaffin, eds. El Cajon, CA, and St. Joseph, MO: Institute for Creation Research and Creation Research Society, 381–468.
4. Gentry, R. V. 1988. Creation’s Tiny Mystery, 2nd ed. Knoxville, TN: Earth Science Associates.
5. The superscript 238 represents the mass of the uranium isotope. Although different varieties (or isotopes) of the same chemical element must have the same number of protons in their nuclei, the number of neutrons can vary, resulting in different mass numbers.
6. However, these distinct rings cannot always be distinguished, in part due to radiohalo “overexposure” from a very large number of alpha particles.
7. A cleavage plane is a flat surface within a crystal, along which the crystal splits or cleaves easily.
8. Humphreys, D. R. 2018. New Mechanism for Accelerated Removal of Excess Radiogenic Heat. Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism. 8 (1): 731–739.
9. Snelling, A. A. and J. Woodmorappe. 1998. The Cooling of Thick Igneous Bodies on a Young Earth. Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism. 4 (1): 527–545.
10. The late Dr. Jim Johnson of ICR was adamant that that the Hebrew in Genesis 3:17 implied that that the ground itself was cursed by God, and accelerated nuclear decay neatly fits such a cursing.
11. Atmospheric radiocarbon would be an exception, but because of the huge amounts of carbon in the pre-Flood biosphere (as evidenced from fossilized vegetation), living things prior to the Flood had very little radiocarbon in their bodies.
12. This is how geologist Dr. Brent G. Dalrymple described polonium radiohalos in his testimony at the 1981 McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education trial.

Dr. Hebert is a research scientist at the Institute for Creation Research and earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Texas at Dallas.