Pinnacles at Nambung National Park
For another o todays casual and incidental refutations of creationism, we have news about the climate in Western Australia, 90,000 years before creationists little god magicked up a small flat planet with a dome over it, according to the book of Bronze Age creation myths that creationists have mistaken for a science textbook.
Of course, when everything else about Earth's history occurred in the 99.9975% of its history that occurred before the mythical 'Creation Week', this will come as no surprise to anyone who is not functionally illiterate with the thinking ability of a slow 9year-old.
Information of the history of Australia's Pinnacles at Nambung National Park, please. The Pinnacles Desert is one of Australia's most iconic natural attractions, located within Nambung National Park in Western Australia, about 200 km north of Perth. These limestone formations rise from the yellow sand like jagged stone pillars, creating a surreal, almost alien landscape.The discovery was made in the Nambung National Park, where unusual geological features known as 'The Pinnacles' have been shown to be the result of an unusually wet period about 100,000 years ago. The research team was led by Dr Matej Lipar, then Adjunct Research Fellow in Curtin University’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, now at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU). Key to the dating was the nodules of iron found in the Pinnacles.
Geological History
The Pinnacles are believed to have formed approximately 25,000 to 30,000 years ago, although their exact origin remains a subject of scientific debate. They were originally formed from shells composed of marine organisms, which over time broke down into lime-rich sand. This sand was blown inland by wind and accumulated into dunes. The limestone pillars are thought to have formed in a process involving:
- Calcareous sand dunes: Layers of shell fragments, rich in calcium carbonate, were cemented together over time to form limestone.
- Rainwater leaching: Over time, rainwater seeped through the dunes, dissolving calcium carbonate and re-depositing it in lower layers, eventually creating a hard cap.
- Erosion: The wind and water gradually eroded the softer material around the formations, exposing the harder limestone columns that now stand as the Pinnacles.
Indigenous Connection
Before European colonization, the area that is now Nambung National Park was home to the Nyoongar people, who are the traditional custodians of the land. The Pinnacles have cultural and spiritual significance to the Nyoongar people, though specific details of their meaning in local lore are often kept private within the community.
European Discovery and Modern History
European settlers were unaware of the Pinnacles until the mid-19th century. The area was first described in detail by William Dampier, a British explorer, in the late 17th century, although formal recognition came much later.
Nambung National Park itself was established in 1956, with the Pinnacles becoming more widely known and accessible through tourism initiatives in the late 20th century. Today, the park is a popular tourist destination, offering walking trails and scenic drives through the desert landscape.
The Pinnacles Today
The Pinnacles attract visitors from all over the world for their unique natural beauty, especially during sunrise and sunset, when the lighting gives the stone pillars a dramatic appearance. Additionally, the park is home to a wide range of flora and fauna, with wildflowers blooming during the spring, adding another layer of beauty to the park.
Scientists have just announced they have dated them to 100,000 years ago using the thorium and helium trapped in iron nodules in the Pinnacles. How does this dating method work?
The dating method using thorium and helium trapped in iron nodules in the Pinnacles involves a technique called (U-Th)/He dating, which is commonly used to date minerals and geological formations. This method relies on the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium isotopes to produce helium as a by-product. Here’s how the process works in detail:
- Thorium and Uranium Decay
- Uranium-238 (U-238) and Thorium-232 (232Th) are both radioactive isotopes that undergo a series of decays.
- Thorium-232 decays over time into lead-208 (208Pb) through a series of intermediate radioactive elements. One of the by-products of this decay is alpha particles, which are essentially helium nuclei (2 protons and 2 neutrons).
- As these isotopes decay within the iron nodules, they emit alpha particles, which get trapped as helium in the crystal structure of the minerals.
- Accumulation of Helium
- The helium produced from the radioactive decay remains trapped in the mineral or nodule, and the amount of helium can increase over time.
- Helium diffusion is temperature-dependent, so the mineral must have remained below a certain temperature threshold to retain the helium and not let it escape.
- Measuring Helium Concentration
- Scientists can measure the amount of helium that has accumulated in the iron nodules, along with the amounts of uranium and thorium.
- The higher the concentration of helium relative to the uranium and thorium, the longer the time that has passed since the radioactive decay began.
- Dating the Formation
- The ratio of accumulated helium to the amount of uranium and thorium provides an estimate of how long the decay process has been occurring, allowing scientists to date when the iron nodules formed.
- This method works well for timescales ranging from thousands to hundreds of millions of years, making it suitable for dating the Pinnacles to 100,000 years ago.
Advantages of the Method:
- Sensitive to Geological Timeframes: The (U-Th)/He method is especially sensitive to ancient formations, like those in the Pinnacles.
- Accurate for Low-Temperature Systems: The technique is particularly useful for dating materials that have remained in low-temperature environments, where helium can stay trapped for long periods without diffusing away.
Application to the Pinnacles:
In the case of the Pinnacles, scientists applied this method to the iron nodules found within the limestone formations. By analyzing the trapped helium and thorium content, they were able to estimate that the formations are 100,000 years old, far older than previous estimates. This dating approach provides a more accurate timeline for the geological history of the Pinnacles and opens up new insights into the ancient environmental conditions that led to their formation.
The team have just published their findings, open access, in the journal Science Advances and announced it in a Curtin University press release:
Iron nuggets in the Pinnacles unlock secrets of ancient and future climates
Small iron-rich formations found within Western Australia’s Pinnacles, which are part of the world’s largest wind-blown limestone belt spanning more than 1000km, have provided new insights into Earth’s ancient climate and changing landscape.
The new research found the pinnacles were formed about 100,000 years ago during what was the wettest period in the past half-million years for the area, and very different from the Mediterranean climate Western Australia experiences today.
Lead author Dr Matej Lipar, Adjunct Research Fellow in Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, now at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU), said the spectacular finger-like stone pinnacles at Nambung National Park are a type of karst created by water dissolving rocks.
These formations offer crucial insights into ancient climates and environments, but accurately dating them has been extremely challenging until now. Karst landscapes, like those in Nambung National Park, are found globally and serve as sensitive indicators of environmental change. Studying them within an accurate timeline helps us understand how Earth’s geological systems respond to climate shifts.
We found this period was locally the wettest in the past half-million years, distinct from other regions in Australia and far removed from Western Australia’s current Mediterranean climate. An abundance of water during this time caused the limestone to dissolve, forming the distinctive pillars of the Pinnacles and creating the ideal environment for the iron nodules to develop.
Dr Matej Lipar, lead author
Anton Melik Geographical Institute
Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Curtin co-author Associate Professor Martin Danišík, from the John de Laeter Centre, said the iron-rich nodules acted as geological clocks, trapping helium from the consistent radioactive decay of tiny quantities of naturally occurring uranium and thorium.
Measuring this helium provides a precise record of when the nodules formed. The innovative dating techniques developed in this study reveal the nodules date back about one hundred thousand years, highlighting an exceptionally wet climate period.
Dr Martin Danišík, co-author
Western Australia ThermoChronology Hub (WATCH) Facility
John de Laeter Centre
Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
Study co-author Associate Professor Milo Barham, from Curtin’s Timescales of Mineral Systems Group in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said being able to reconstruct past climate changes was important given the context it provides to understanding human evolution and ecosystems more broadly amid dramatic climate fluctuations over the past three million years.
This new knowledge will enhance our understanding of global environments and ecosystems, helping us prepare for, and mitigate the impacts of, a warming planet. This research not only advances scientific knowledge but also offers practical insights into climate history and environmental change, relevant to anyone concerned about our planet’s present and future.
Dr Milo Barham, co-author
Timescales of Mineral Systems Group
School of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
An international collaboration with ZRC SAZU, the research project was supported by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency.
Publication:Matej Lipar et al.
Ironing out complexities in karst chronology: (U-Th)/He ferricrete ages reveal wet MIS 5c.
Sci. Adv. 10, eadp0414 (2024). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adp0414
AbstractA reminder then to any creationists who want to try to rubbish this refutation of creationism on the grounds of erroneous geochronology, all you need do is explain how the method the scientists used, as detailed in their paper in Science Advances, was wrong. If the argument is to be the traditional claim that radioactive decay rates have changed, all you need do is explain how the weak nuclear force, which determines radioactive decay rates, changed to such an extent that it made 10,000 years or less look like 100,000 years, while still allowing the formation of atoms when creationism's putative creator created the Universe, Earth, and living organisms which all depend on the existence of atoms.
Karst landforms provide insights into landscape evolution and paleoclimate but are inherently challenging to date. An ancient interval of particularly intense weathering of Western Australian Pleistocene aeolianites is recorded in a spectacular pinnacle karst landscape with associated ferricrete nodules. (U-Th)/He dating of the ferricrete nodules revealed an age of 102.8 + 10.6/−11.4 thousand years, corresponding to marine isotope stage 5c. The (U-Th)/He age thus directly dates the wettest interglacial period in the region over the last 500 thousand years, which was responsible for the dissolution that formed the pinnacles. The reliability of the ferricrete (U-Th)/He age is supported by bounding optically stimulated luminescence and U-Th dates on associated aeolianites and carbonate precipitates, respectively. A (U-Th)/He approach is globally applicable to aeolianites with associated ferricretes, allowing more accurate dating of the environmental changes affecting these lithologies, and temporally constraining rapid Pleistocene climatic oscillations to better contextualize the associated evolution of the biosphere.
INTRODUCTION
Pleistocene climate oscillations have triggered profound environmental and evolutionary changes (1, 2). Environmental responses to climatic forcings can be interpreted from landforms, which can preserve evidence of the specific conditions required for their formation. Karst landscapes, which comprise 15% of the present ice-free surface of Earth (3), contain landforms that are especially susceptible to modification by climate change. This is because the processes that form karst landforms (i.e., dissolution of susceptible lithologies—limestone, dolomite, and gypsum) are strongly dependent on climate (4, 5), with dissolution most effective during humid climate phases when there are greater quantities of mobile water. As a result, karst landforms, both surface and subsurface features, have been used to provide insights into climate change and landscape evolution during the Pleistocene and over longer time periods spanning millions of years (6–8).
To maximize the interpretive potential of karst landforms for paleoclimatic reconstruction, a robust chronology of karstification is essential. This poses a major challenge because, ironically, karst landforms in general are defined by empty (i.e., dissolved) spaces within the rock, such as caves, dolines, karren, and solution pipes. As such, karst epitomizes one of the most profound problems in geology in terms of identifying the temporal significance of gaps in the rock record (9). Traditionally, temporally constraining karst episodes has focused on either the host rock or precipitates/deposits overlying karst surfaces, which are older and younger than the time of karstification, respectively. Dating of underground deposits like clastic cave sediment and speleothems can also only provide a minimum age of karstification, because like sediment fills, speleothems form after the draining of the cave in which they precipitated (5, 10–12). One of the rare successes in dating karst development was achieved by 40Ar/39Ar dating of alunite that precipitated during the genesis of hypogene caves (13), but this technique is limited to hypogene karst, which forms without any direct genetic relationship to the surface climate (14).
Fortunately, it is now possible to date ferricretes, which form on the surface of some karst landscapes as a result of strong weathering and consequent soil formation during periods of extensive karstification (15, 16). Ferricretes occur as ferruginous duricrusts cemented by iron oxides (17) and authigenic pisoliths and nodules in nonferruginous sediment (18), and often form as a response to environmental changes (19). Early attempts to date ferricretes using paleomagnetism (16, 20) and the U-Th technique (21, 22) have commonly yielded results with high uncertainties. Furthermore, many samples are not suitable for the latter method due to a low U-Th content. More recently, (U-Th)/He dating has been demonstrated to yield accurate and sufficiently precise ages on ferricretes extending back through the Cenozoic (23–26). Consequently, this method holds great potential for unraveling paleoclimatic records but, to date, has not been applied to ferricretes younger than half a million years.
Pleistocene climate studies in Australia using karst landscapes have focused on carbonate aeolianites (i.e., aeolian calcarenites or dune limestones) (27), particularly along the southern and western coastlines where the world’s most extensive aeolianite deposits occur (28) (Fig. 1A). Karstification of the aeolianites, particularly during humid climate phases, has formed a variety of surface and subsurface landforms, including solution pipes, pinnacles, and caves (29). Here, we target the world famous pinnacle karst in Nambung National Park (coastal southwestern Western Australia), which consists of thousands of pinnacles up to 5 m high, 2 m wide, and 0.5 to 5 m apart (30) (Fig. 1B). The pinnacles are residual features resulting mainly from solution widening and coalescence of vertical solution pipes within the host carbonate aeolianite (30). The karst pinnacles are developed in a ridge of aeolianite that runs parallel to the shoreline and lies around 100 m above sea level (Fig. 2). Rounded red-brown ferricrete nodules and pisoliths are widespread over the ridge, occurring cemented on the sides of the pinnacles (Fig. 1C) and scattered around the bases.
Reconnaissance dating of the host rock and postkarstification chemical and clastic deposits by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and U-Th methods suggest that the pinnacle-forming karstification episode occurred within the last half million years between marine isotope stage (MIS) 6 and MIS 4, during a period of unusually high effective rainfall (6, 31). Thus, the pinnacle karst in the Nambung National Park may provide evidence of the wettest interglacial period in the Middle-Late Pleistocene. However, published geochronological data for this site, which currently rely on bracketing materials, only indirectly and loosely constrain the age of pinnacle formation. Therefore, there is a need for more precise geochronology that is, ideally, obtained directly on the landform/landscape of interest.
Fig. 1. The pinnacles in Nambung National Park, Australia.
Locality map of the pinnacles in Nambung National Park, including the distribution of Quaternary calcarenite and Holocene unconsolidated sand (A) [based on Geoscience Australia 1:1,000,000 scale, Surface Geology of Australia (digital dataset, 2008); digital elevation model downloaded from the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission website]. A photograph of pinnacles and stratigraphical sequence in Nambung National Park (B). A cluster of ferricrete nodules cemented to the margins of the pinnacles (arrows pointing to nodules) (C).
Fig. 2. Geological cross section of the coastal dunes, inland plain, and the escarpment.
Vertical exaggeration × 100. Qhss, Holocene Safety Bay Sand (loose calcareous sand); Qha, Holocene alluvium; Qptl, Pleistocene Tamala Limestone calcarenite; Qpbs, Pleistocene Bassendean Sand (quartz sand); Qpc, Pleistocene colluvium/sand/laterite; Qpgs, Pleistocene Guildford Formation (sand); Tpy, Pliocene Yoganup Formation; Tpa, Pliocene Ascot Formation; Ru, Triassic Lesueur Sandstone; Rk, Triassic Kockatea Shale; Juy, Jurassic Yarragadee Formation; Jloe, Jurassic Eneabba Member of the Cockleshell Gully Formation [reworked from Kern (51)].
Here, we constrain the age of karstification in Nambung National Park using (U-Th)/He dating of ferricrete nodules cemented on the sides of the pinnacles, thereby dating the time of higher effective rainfall that formed the pinnacles themselves. This provides information on climate changes in southwestern Australia during the Middle-Late Pleistocene and demonstrates the efficacy of the (U-Th)/He geochronology method to date ferricrete material as young as Early Pleistocene.
If your disputation of the dating used in the paper is more than simple hand-waving dismissal of another inconvenient fact, and based on sound science, that should be a simple task, otherwise, another science paper has just incidentally blown creationism out of the water, and you can't refute it.
What Makes You So Special? From The Big Bang To You
How did you come to be here, now? This books takes you from the Big Bang to the evolution of modern humans and the history of human cultures, showing that science is an adventure of discovery and a source of limitless wonder, giving us richer and more rewarding appreciation of the phenomenal privilege of merely being alive and able to begin to understand it all.
Available in Hardcover, Paperback or ebook for Kindle
Ten Reasons To Lose Faith: And Why You Are Better Off Without It
This book explains why faith is a fallacy and serves no useful purpose other than providing an excuse for pretending to know things that are unknown. It also explains how losing faith liberates former sufferers from fear, delusion and the control of others, freeing them to see the world in a different light, to recognise the injustices that religions cause and to accept people for who they are, not which group they happened to be born in. A society based on atheist, Humanist principles would be a less divided, more inclusive, more peaceful society and one more appreciative of the one opportunity that life gives us to enjoy and wonder at the world we live in.
Available in Hardcover, Paperback or ebook for Kindle
No comments :
Post a Comment
Obscene, threatening or obnoxious messages, preaching, abuse and spam will be removed, as will anything by known Internet trolls and stalkers, by known sock-puppet accounts and anything not connected with the post,
A claim made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Remember: your opinion is not an established fact unless corroborated.