Afterwards, Ngauruhoe steamed almost continuously, with many small ash eruptions8 (Figure 5).
Cannon-like, highly explosive eruptions in January and March 1974 threw out large quantities of ash as a column into the atmosphere, and as avalanches flowing down the cone’s sides.
Austin's paper or at any scholarly criticism of it, your eyes will quickly glaze over from the extraordinary detail and intricacy.
Mt Ngauruhoe is thought to have been active for at least 2,500 years, with more than 70 eruptive periods since 1839, when European settlers first recorded a steam eruption.2 Of course, before that, the Maoris witnessed many eruptions from the mountain.
The first lava eruption seen by Europeans occurred in 1870.3 Then there were ash eruptions every few years until a major explosive eruption in April–May 1948, followed by lava flowing down the northwestern slopes in February 1949.4 These flows are still distinguishable today on the northwestern and western slopes of Ngauruhoe (Figure 4).
The results came back dating the rock to 350,000 years old, with certain compounds within it as old as 2.8 million years. Austin's conclusion is that radiometric dating is uselessly unreliable. Austin chose a dating technique that is inappropriate for the sample tested, and charged that he deliberately used the wrong experiment in order to promote the idea that science fails to show that the Earth is older than the Bible claims.
Yet the experiment remains as one of the cornerstones of the Young Earth movement.
But this sediment doesn't typically include the necessary isotopes in measurable amounts.
Fossils can't form in the igneous rock that usually does contain the isotopes.
The most widely known form of radiometric dating is carbon-14 dating.
This is what archaeologists use to determine the age of human-made artifacts. The half-life of carbon-14 is only 5,730 years, so carbon-14 dating is only effective on samples that are less than 50,000 years old.
Standing roughly in the centre of New Zealand’s North Island, Mt Ngauruhoe is New Zealand’s newest volcano and one of the most active (Figures 1 and 2).