The uniformitarian model predicts an age of the earth consistent with the results of the value of the uranium 238 fission constant. The widespread acceptance of this value stems from several factors, one of the foremost being the acceptance by the uniformitarian community that there was no change in the decay constant at any time in the earth's history. Furthermore, the value for the uranium 238 fission constant derived from the results of potassium/argon dating methods also gives a value fairly consistent with the uniformitarian model (old earth) view [1].
The recent creationist community holds the Biblical account of the Genesis Flood as a literal event in the earth's history and expects to observe its consequences in the experiments performed today. Did such a worldwide catastrophic event alter the normal process of mineral formation in such a way that present uranium dating methods make a faulty assumption when supposing that there is no correction necessary for a change in the fission constant? An emerging theory in recent-creationism is the possibility of accelerated nuclear decay. Toward this objective, this study will focus on the discrepancy between uranium 238 decay constants obtained from potassium/argon studies (about 7 x 10·17/yr) and the directly obtained value of 8.5 x 10-17 / yr.
Determination of the AI value is important for nuclear physics, with one of the major applications being the calculation of the fission track age in geochronology. The determination of this constant has been an active area of research since 1940. This study will compare the directly obtained AI value derived from a fission track experiment to values from the method of potassium/argon dating. The objective is to determine whether there are problems with K/Ar dating,