Young Earth geologist's ten-year old volcanic rock sample and its grossly overestimated radiometric age violated standard submission protocol.
In a recent interview on Creation Ministries International (CMI) YouTube channel, geologist Tas Walker discussed the results of radiometric dating on a rock sample acquired from the Mount St. Helens (Washington State, USA) eruption in 1980. The 'whole rock' sample, which formed about 10 years after the eruption, was sent to Geochron Laboratories of Cambridge, Massachusetts and yielded an age of 350,000 years. The results of the study were published by Dr. Steve Austin in a paper titled, Excess Argon Within Mineral Concentrates from the New Dacite Lava Dome at Mount St Helens Volcano (1996). Because of these results, Dr. Walker questions the validity of the radioisotope Potassium-Argon (K-Ar) dating method, saying, "...the lessons of Mount St. Helens [rock sample] is direct evidence that the dating methods... there's a problem with them... a big problem" (source, time 35:05, 2023). At the same time, he acknowledges that this "problem" with radiometric dating doesn't prove the earth is young.
Dr. Austin's research on the ten-year old volcanic rock sample and its grossly overestimated radiometric age drew criticism from the scientific community. Primarily, that the instruments used by the laboratory at the time were not calibrated to analyze rock samples younger than two million years (source). In the CMI interview above, Dr. Walker was asked whether or not Dr. Austin told the lab the origin of the rock and it's date of formation. He answered, "I can't remember if he told them exactly that in this case. Often that is required so that the laboratory knows the ballpark of where, what sort of date to expect, and how to calibrate, and how to adjust their instruments." (source, time 3:55, 2023). Dr. Austin's paper reveals that he did not tell the lab where the rock sample came from or that it was only ten years old. He only told the lab that the sample came from dacite (a volcanic rock formed from lava) and to "expect low argon" (source, under K-Ar analysis).
Furthermore, the radioactive isotope of potassium, 40K, has a long half-life of 1,250 million years (source) and has only been used to date rocks an young as 20,000 years old (source). Knowing this, Dr. Austin should never have expected reliable dating results using the Potassium-Argon (K-Ar) method on a rock sample that was only ten years old. In this way, Dr. Austin's dishonest communication with Geochron Laboratories and his misuse of the dating method in regard to the Mount St. Helens rock sample renders the results invalid, and so, does not undermine radiometric dating methods as supposed by Young Earthers.
Dr. Austin seems to have abandoned his Mount Saint Helens rock research from thirty years ago, as he never refers to the grossly overestimated Potassium-Argon (K-Ar) dated rock age in a six-part video produced by Awesome Science Media in 2013 called, Flood Geology | Episode 1 | Mount St. Helens | Dr. Steve Austin. More recently in a 2020 video for, Is Genesis History?, Dr. Austin again still avoids mentioning the grossly overestimated ten-year old rock sample as evidence for the supposed unreliability of radiometric dating. (How Can Mount St. Helens Help Us Understand Noah's Flood? - Dr. Steve Austin).
Oddly, geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling, who already confirmed the presence of more than 500 million years worth of decay in the Grand Canyon with radiometric analysis, uses Dr. Austin's research as one of his "concrete examples" of the supposed unreliability of radiometric dating in a July 21, 2023 Answers in Genesis lecture called, Why Radioactive Dating CANNOT Be Trusted (time, 9:25).
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