Rosa Rubicondior: Creationism Refuted - Why Cosmic Ray Storms Make C14 Dating So Accurate

A cosmic carbon spike
Cosmic rays from solar flares or other extraterrestrial sources collide with gas molecules in our atmosphere, spawning neutrons. When a free neutron knocks a proton out of a nitrogen atom, it forms the radioisotope carbon-14 (¹⁴C). The more energetic the event, the higher the ratio of ¹⁴C to stable carbon isotopes. Trees breathe in these isotopes as carbon dioxide (CO₂)

Marking time: Cosmic ray storms can pin precise dates on history from ancient Egypt to the Vikings | Science | AAAS

As though 2026 hadn't started badly enough for creationism, it just got a whole lot worse, with news that geochronologists have a method with which they can pinpoint carbon-14 dates to exact years, removing virtually all sources of error and, devastatingly for creationists, one of their traditional ways to dismiss evidence they don't like has evaporated. But this isn't new information; it's something creationists have either been kept ignorant of, have been pretending not to know about it, or, more likely, did not understand the subject well enough to realise it refuted their claims. It was actually published in Science in April 2023

One of the most persistent fall-back positions in creationist rhetoric is not to deny individual discoveries outright, but to retreat into claims that scientific dating methods are too uncertain to be trusted. Radiocarbon dating, in particular, is routinely portrayed as vague, circular, or endlessly “adjusted” to fit preconceived evolutionary timelines. This claim relies heavily on the idea that dates come with wide error bars that can supposedly be stretched, compressed, or reinterpreted to accommodate a much younger history.

Creationists also rely on the unsupported assertion that radioactive decay rates were much higher once upon a time - a process that coincidentally stopped as soon as we developed the technology to measure it accurately. This claim also sits uncomfortably with another creationist claim - that the Universe is so fine-tuned that altering any of its parameters by even the smallest an=mount would make life impossible. The inconsistency of these two claims is lost on those who have no understanding of how radioactive decay depends on nuclear forces and altering those would make the formation of atoms impossible, so high decay rates when they believe life was created would mean not even Earth could exist, let alone organic molecules.

But perhaps the most amusing accusations against science is that carbon-14 dating assumes a constant ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the atmosphere, but in fact it is variable, depending on solar activity. Not only is this known and is routinely compensated for using dendrochronology because tree rings contain an accurate record of these changes, but it forms the very basis of this devastating rebuttal of creationist claims - we can accurately pinpoint spikes in carbon-14 production and correlate them with known events in history, thus removing any reasonable margin of error.

A contemporary magazine illustration depicted the radiant aura of 1859.

Harper's New Monthly Magazine

The research discussed in Science explains how.

Over the past decade, scientists have identified abrupt, globally synchronous spikes in atmospheric carbon-14 caused by extreme cosmic-ray or solar particle events. These events leave a sharp, unmistakable signature in annually resolved natural archives such as tree rings. Unlike conventional radiocarbon calibration, which often yields date ranges spanning decades, these spikes function as precise chronological anchors: once a spike is identified in a sample, individual annual growth rings can be counted forward or backward to yield an exact calendar year.

This is not a refinement at the margins. It is a qualitative shift in how securely the past can be dated.

Why this matters for creationist claims
Creationist arguments about dating typically exploit uncertainty. When radiocarbon dates are expressed as ranges, critics claim that the entire chronological framework is subjective or adjustable. The existence of discrete, globally recorded cosmic-ray events removes that ambiguity. These events are not regional, cultural, or theoretical constructs; they are physical phenomena recorded simultaneously across the planet.

L'Anse aux Meadows.

Historic living history reconstruction based on the excavations at L'Anse aux Meadows, a Norse settlement in Newfoundland.

Getty Images / Russ Heinl / All Canad Photos

L’Anse aux Meadows is a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the northern tip of Newfoundland, Canada. It is the only confirmed site of a Norse settlement in North America and provides archaeological evidence of Viking exploration around the year 1000 CE. The site’s discovery fundamentally changed understanding of pre-Columbian transatlantic contact. Key facts

Location: Northern tip of Newfoundland, Canada
Established (rediscovered): 1960
Period of occupation: Circa 1000 CE
UNESCO inscription: 1978
Designation: National Historic Site of Canada

Discovery and excavation

Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad identified the site in 1960 after local residents pointed out ancient mounds resembling Norse ruins. Excavations uncovered turf-walled buildings, iron nails, and other artifacts consistent with Viking construction found in Iceland and Greenland. These findings confirmed the first known European presence in North America nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

Historical significance

L’Anse aux Meadows is widely associated with the Vinland sagas, which describe Norse voyages from Greenland to lands westward. Archaeological evidence suggests it served as a short-term base for exploration and resource gathering rather than a permanent colony. Its existence supports the authenticity of medieval Norse accounts of transatlantic travel.

Preservation and interpretation

The site is jointly managed by Parks Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Visitors can explore reconstructed Norse buildings, view original excavation areas, and learn about Viking seafaring culture. As a protected heritage site, L’Anse aux Meadows continues to be a focus of archaeological study and public education on early European exploration of the Americas.

Because the spikes appear in tree rings worldwide, they allow independent chronologies to be locked together. Once such a spike is identified, it becomes impossible to compress centuries of history into a few decades without denying the existence of annually formed growth rings themselves — a denial that would contradict basic plant biology and observable modern processes.

In short, the “you can’t really know the date” argument collapses when the date is pinned to a specific calendar year by a globally synchronised physical signal.

Concrete examples already in use
The most widely cited demonstration of this method is its application to Norse archaeology in North America. Wood recovered from Viking structures at L’Anse aux Meadows contains a known carbon-14 spike from a cosmic-ray event that occurred in 993–994 CE. By counting annual growth rings from that spike to the bark edge, researchers established that the trees were felled in 1021 CE. This provides an exact year for Viking activity in the Americas — something previously thought unattainable.

That result alone is devastating to claims that archaeological dating is inherently imprecise or speculative.

The same approach is now being extended to much older contexts. In ancient Egypt, where debates over “high” and “low” chronologies have sometimes been seized upon by creationists as evidence of historical chaos, cosmic-ray markers offer a way to synchronise wooden artefacts, papyri, and construction materials to absolute calendar years. As more of these spikes are mapped and identified, floating chronologies become fixed ones.

Importantly, these markers are not limited to Europe or the Mediterranean. Because the events are global, they can be used to cross-check dates across continents and cultures, independently of written records or historical assumptions.

Closing off the escape route
Creationism has long survived not by providing a coherent alternative chronology, but by attacking the perceived weaknesses of scientific dating. That strategy depends on uncertainty. Cosmic-ray radiocarbon time-stamps dramatically reduce that uncertainty and, in some cases, eliminate it altogether.

What this research demonstrates is that human history is not just ancient, but precisely dated. It shows that science is not hand-waving its way through the past with flexible estimates, but increasingly able to assign exact years to events thousands of years ago using independent, physical evidence.

For creationist arguments that rely on claims of chronological vagueness or arbitrariness, this is not merely inconvenient. It is existentially damaging. The escape hatch of “you can’t really know the dates” is being sealed shut, one cosmic-ray storm at a time.

And there is an additional source of embarrassment for creationists in that these spikes of solar radiation don't just cause a rise in the level of carbon-14 but they also produce two other radioisotopes — beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 — in the upper atmosphere. Unlike carbon-14 which gets bound up in living tissues, these isotopes are brought to the surface of Earth in rain and snow and get deposited in discrete, detectable layers in polar ice cores, producing spikes there too, which can then be accurately correlated with the known dates from tree rings. And of course, ice cores record the passage of deep time on an Earth very much older than creationists claim.

Publication:

Michael Price
Marking time - Radiocarbon timestamps left in ancient tree rings by cosmic ray bombardments can date historical events with unprecedented precision
Science, Vol 380, Issue 6641.