Radical Radiohalos

The depth and beauty of the granite countertop of the ice cream shop intrigued me as I slowly enjoyed my cone.  There were grey, white, clear, and light pink specks, which I knew to be quartz, peachy colored specks, which were Feldspar, and most interesting of all, black or very dark green specks of biotite that played with the light in a stunning way.  Granite is a beautiful rock, formed by lava that cools underground, but the biotite in granite actually holds microscopic marks with immense implications of a worldwide flood.

Biotite is a type of mica, which means that it is made up of hundreds of tiny sheets thinner than paper.  Sometimes tiny zircon crystals (not the same as cubic zirconia, which is a laboratory-made substitute for diamonds) get stuck in between these layers of biotite.  Now, because zirconium has a similar atomic structure to radioactive Uranium, zircon crystals often have radioactive decay happening  in and around them, leaking out alpha particles into the surrounding biotite layers and leaving a mark, called a radioactive halo, or radiohalo, for short.

These radiohalos have rings, just like an onion.  Each ring can be assigned to a specific step of radioactive decay by measuring the size of the ring, so scientists know that the complete decay cycle of Uranium leaves eight specific radiohalos.  However, it is a well-established fact that there are some Uranium radiohalos that only have one, two, or three radiohalos, which can be identified as having come from the fastest steps of Uranium decay.  RATE concluded that this means something (moving flood waters) must have moved the decaying Uranium very quickly while it was still decaying, and then left the radiohalos where they are currently found.  There is no way we could find one, two, or three ring radiohalos if the granite formed very slowly over millions of years, because those steps of Uranium decay finish in less than a second or just days.  So, in summary, microscopic marks in tiny bits of biotite in granite are a testament to the worldwide flood.