Home Diseases and pests A tragedy hidden by time, or why mammoths became extinct. About suddenly frozen mammoths and cosmic disasters - Enchanted Soul - LiveJournal Why mammoths froze instantly

Diseases and pests

A tragedy hidden by time, or why mammoths became extinct. About suddenly frozen mammoths and cosmic disasters - Enchanted Soul - LiveJournal Why mammoths froze instantly

“In November 1955, the publishing house Doubleday and Co. published Immanuel Velikovsky’s book “Earth in Revolutions,” which he dedicated to his daughters, Shulamit and Ruth. “I intended to link together the stories of earlier global upheavals, to present geological and paleontological materials that support human evidence,” Velikovsky wrote. “But the reception of Worlds in Collision by certain groups of scientists has convinced me that, before reviving the vivid spectacle of earlier catastrophes, we must present at least some evidence from the rocks that is as convincing as the evidence that has survived to this day in writing and in oral traditions." In Alaska, many kilometers of accumulations of bones of extinct animals - mammoths, mastodons, super bison and horses - have been discovered. These animals disappeared at the end of the Ice Age.

Here, in this mass, the remains of existing species were discovered - many millions of animals with broken and severed limbs, mixed with trees uprooted. Velikovsky lists known natural disasters and asks the question: could they have led to such mass destruction? Similar accumulations have been found along almost the entire coast of Alaska, the length of which exceeds the distance from Newfoundland to Florida. Frozen mammoths were discovered in the permafrost of northern Siberia, the defrosted meat of which was eaten by dogs without harm. The ground had to freeze when the animals died, otherwise their bodies would rot. The Novosibirsk and other islands, located 1000 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, are literally packed with a huge number of remains of mammoths, elephants, rhinoceroses - animals that require large amounts of plant food every day throughout the year. How could large herds of these animals exist in a polar climate? A huge number of mammoth tusks are located at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean between the islands. These places were the mainland when mammoths lived here. Velikovsky refers to the French paleontologist Cuvier, who believed that the terrible catastrophe should have been accompanied by a tidal wave rushing onto the mainland, and after this a sudden drop in temperature. Charles Darwin, who denied the possibility of such catastrophes, considered the disappearance of mammoths in Siberia an insoluble mystery. Plants that do not currently grow in northern Siberia were found in the stomach and between the teeth of frozen mammoths. A microscopic examination of the skin revealed red blood cells, indicating that the mammoths did not die instantly, but suffocated, either from gases or from water. The instant freezing of such a huge animal as a mammoth remains a mystery. What could lead to a sudden change in temperature in this area, where huge herds of mammoths, elephants, rhinoceroses, bison once grazed, and where lichen now grows, and even then only for a few months a year? On the New Siberian Islands, suddenly felled huge forests, high hills consisting of broken trees were discovered, and traces of leaves and fruits were preserved. “The destroyed forests were carried from northern Siberia into the ocean and, together with animal bones and sand deposits, built the islands.” Scientists who discovered giant animal cemeteries in Alaska did not pay attention to a similar picture in the polar regions of Siberia and on the Arctic islands. They found no common cause for this mystery. Finds on the New Siberian Islands date back to the 18th-19th centuries, in Alaska - to the 20th century. Before writing about finds not only in the north, but also in other parts of the world, Velikovsky presents the main theories of the history of the Earth and the animal world. Boulders weighing several thousand tons were transported over vast distances (for example, from Scandinavia to the British Isles and to Germany). Huge stone blocks were transported from Finland to the Carpathians and, through the Valdai Hills, to the region of Moscow and the Don. Boulders from the granites of Canada and Labrador are found in the valleys and heights of many states in America. Boulders weighing more than 18,000 tons were found, transported 80 kilometers. In various places around the globe, rocks of non-local origin are transported over long distances by enormous force. Cuvier came to the conclusion that the sea and land changed places more than once, and this process did not occur gradually, but suddenly. None of the forces existing on Earth could be the cause of this phenomenon. Cuvier did not find an answer to the question of what could have caused the disaster. Velikovsky refers to a book by Oxford geologist Professor Buckland, published in 1925. It describes finds in caves in England. In one of the caves, at an altitude of 3 meters above the level of the valley, the geologist found bones and teeth of elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, horses, deer, tigers (with teeth larger than those of lions or Bengal tigers), bears, wolves, hyenas, foxes , hares, rabbits and various birds. Many of these animals died before they were born. Similar finds have been found throughout England. How could tropical animals live in the cold climate of northern Europe? Just like Cuvier. Buckland was almost convinced that if a change in climate occurred, it happened suddenly and not earlier than five or six thousand years ago. Other scientists came to the same conclusions based on their own research. In many places around the world (Scotland, Italy, Germany, Ohio-Michigan, California) traces of sudden simultaneous death of fish were found in areas of many tens of thousands of square kilometers. Velikovsky begins the chapter on uniformity with a historical and political analysis that provides a psychological explanation of the conditions for the emergence of this theory. After 1815 there was a universal need for peace and tranquility in Europe. It was in this climate that the theory of slow, subtle evolution in nature over millions of years could become popular and dominant in the natural sciences. The theory, proposed by Haton in 1795 and Lamarck in 1800, was raised to its current position by Charles Lyell, a young lawyer with a keen interest in geology. His friend and student Charles Darwin built his theory of evolution on Lyell's principles of uniformity, that wind, solar heat and rain had slowly built up the geology of the planet over many millions of years. Rivers carry sediment into the sea, etc. No major disasters have ever changed the face of the Earth. Sporadic volcanic eruptions, according to Lyell. could not have the same significance for the structure of the Earth as the wind or sea waves. “According to the theory of uniformity, there were no processes in the past that were not currently occurring; and not only the nature, but even the intensity of physical phenomena at the present time are the criterion of what happened in the past.” Velikovsky quotes Lyell. since his theory of uniformity is not only a subject of instruction. To doubt it is to be a heretic. Analyzing the quotes, Velikovsky clearly shows that they are not talking about scientific principles, but about the principle of faith. How did Lyell explain the findings of hippopotamus remains in England? They traveled from the Nile along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, along the rivers of Spain and France to the Somme, then along the Thames or Severn and returned south before the snow and ice overtook them. In a cave in West Yorkshire at an altitude of 480 meters above sea level, the remains of mammoths, rhinoceroses, hippos, bison, hyenas and other animals were found in clay deposits containing boulders. In caves in northern Wells, 130 meters above sea level, human and animal habitations were destroyed by the action of the sea during great cataclysms and then filled with sea sand. “Hippopotamuses not only traveled on summer nights to England and Wells,” writes Velikovsky, “but also climbed the hills to die peacefully among the other animals in the cave, and the ice, slowly approaching, gently scattered small pebbles on the travelers who rested in peace, and the earth, with its hills and caves, sank below sea level in the slow rhythm of a lullaby, and gentle streams caressed the dead bodies and covered them with pink sand.” Proponents of the uniformity theory believed that the climate of the British Isles was milder, that the islands first sank and then rose again to their current height - and all this without catastrophic events. Paleontological finds, no matter what explanation they are given, demonstrate enormous changes in nature. Lyell explains the huge deposits of sand, gravel, organic matter and even boulders as the work of icebergs. But it is difficult to imagine icebergs as thinking carriers. Lyell could not help but see the weakness of his theory in this matter. The only alternative in his time was the tidal wave theory. “But Lyell hated disasters. He equally disliked them both in the political life of Europe and in nature.” Darwin recorded in his diary observations made mainly in South America. He was amazed at the enormous changes in the animal world of the continent. He wrote about disappeared animals. As a student, follower and admirer of Lyell, he believed that no catastrophes had occurred. What, then, led to the destruction of large and small animals in Southern Patagonia, Brazil, the Peruvian Cordillera and North America up to the Bering Strait? Darwin did not know the answer to this question. “Out of Darwinian confusion grew the idea of the extinction of species as a prelude to natural selection.” Swedish naturalist L. Agasiz proposed a theory according to which, during the Ice Age, giant glaciers carried boulders that formed moraines; glaciers created lake reservoirs by plowing the soil with strong flint boulders. Lyell accepted this theory. For Agasiz, the Ice Age and its end were catastrophic events. He believed that the mammoths in Siberia were suddenly captured by ice, which spread over a large part of the globe. He believed that the Western Alps had risen recently, at the end of the Ice Age, that they were younger than the skeletons of the mammoths that died at the beginning of this period. Agasiz brought the last ice age forward by half a million to a million years (in Lyell's scheme). But Lyell interpreted Agasiz's theory in a spirit of uniformity. At one time, Buckland showed Lyell a chain of moraines two miles from the latter’s father’s house. “The theory of a continental ice sheet,” writes Velikovsky, “was acceptable to Lyell. He agreed with her, content to walk no further than two miles from his home to check on her.” The opponent of this theory, the Englishman Murchison, after careful field research, came to the conclusion that in southern Sweden, Finland and north-eastern Siberia, where there are no mountains from which glaciers could descend, only sudden gigantic sea activity could produce the changes he discovered. He drew attention to the fact that there are no boulders at all in Siberia, although it is bordered on three sides by high mountains. When finds attributed to the Ice Age were discovered in the hottest place in Brazil and then in equatorial Africa, even Agasiz's most ardent supporters were embarrassed. But more than that. It turned out that the ice spread from the equator to more temperate latitudes, and in India - not only from the equator to the north, but even from the valley up to the foot of the Himalayas. Geologists decided that these events did not occur during the last ice age, but much earlier. But where could such an amount of ice appear on the equator, even earlier? Almost all of Greenland, with the exception of the coastal part and the northern tip, is covered by a huge glacier, the thickness of which reaches two kilometers. Northern Greenland, like northeastern Siberia and Alaska, has never been covered by a glacier. Why were there glaciers in Madagascar and British Guinea, located in the tropics, but never in northern Greenland, located 7° from the North Pole? To explain why northern animals are found in southern France and lions in Alaska, four ice ages were constructed, when northern animals retreated south, and, correspondingly, three interglacial periods, when southern animals migrated north. But can this theory explain how magnolias and fig trees grew in northern Greenland? “Forests of exotic trees and thickets of lush subtropical plants covered the country, lying deep in the cold Arctic...” The Spitsbergen archipelago is located far beyond the Arctic Circle. Large deposits of coal were formed here from subtropical forests. Corals have been discovered on Spitsbergen that are not warm enough in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Egypt and Morocco. Corals are also found in Alaska, Canada and Greenland. In Antarctica, at latitude 85°, where there is nothing living, coal deposits have been discovered. Forests also grew here. “Sometimes it seems that climate history is a collection of unresolved, even unsolvable, questions. Without dramatic changes in the position of the earth's axis or the shape of its orbit, or both, there could not have been conditions under which tropical plants flourished in the polar regions. If anyone is not convinced of this, he should try cultivating corals at the North Pole." In the United States, at an altitude of about 200 meters above sea level, the remains of whales were found in layers formed after the last ice age. Geologists tried to explain this by saying that the earth rose, freed from the weight of the ice. But literally nearby, vast areas of former land that sank into the ocean were discovered. “If the land slowly rose free of ice and carried whale bones to the tops of the hills, why did the neighboring land settle to a depth of several miles? "- asks Velikovsky. In England, France, Gibraltar, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, broken bones of many animals mixed with sharp stones were found in crevices of rocks on hills and hills. Everywhere there are traces of violent death, not at the hands of a person or in a fight with other animals. According to Oxford geologist Prestwich, the animals died as a result of a catastrophe caused by the sudden subsidence and subsequent rise of the continents. Prestwich believed that the affected area was more discussed in his work. "The disaster occurred as England entered the Age of Polished Stone, or perhaps when the centers of ancient civilization were in the Bronze Age." Velikovsky cites similar examples from other sources - examples indicating a sudden gigantic catastrophe. The same finds were found in America (Maryland), in northern China, near Beijing. The researchers were most surprised by the unimaginable number of animal bones from different climatic zones. Moreover, the bones could not have been carried in by water. In many places around the world, the sediment that covered the remains is colored red. A hypothesis arose that the granite gravel was crushed into dust, and the liberated iron caused the color. But H. Peterson from the Gothenburg Oceanographic Institute, studying red clay from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, discovered that it contained layers of ash and a high concentration of nickel, almost completely absent from the water. Peterson believed that the nickel and iron in the red clay were the result of meteorite rain. In Los Angeles, a huge number of remains of saber tigers, wolves, mammoths, bison, horses, camels, mastodons, and birds (including peacocks) immersed in asphalt were found. The perfectly preserved broken bones and the position of the skeletons clearly indicated that huge herds of animals were suddenly captured by waves, gravel and flowing bitumen. Similar finds were found in two other places in California. Here, among the bones of disappeared animals, human bones were discovered. The skulls found are no different from the skulls of living Indians. This indicates that the time when the person was buried or died preceded or coincided with the time when many species of animals disappeared, including the saber-toothed tiger. A giant cemetery of three species of extinct animals, brought here by an unstoppable flow of water, has been discovered in Nebraska. The number of skeletons is unusual - 820 per 150 square meters. m. Throughout the area there were about 16,400 skeletons of two-horned rhinoceroses, 500 skeletons of clawed horses and 100 skeletons of giant pigs. These animals are not on Earth now. Skeletons of other extinct animals have been found a few miles away. Similar traces of a gigantic catastrophe were found in many other places - in Kentucky, Oregon, Colorado, as well as in Switzerland and Germany.

http://2012god.ru/forum/2012/topic-650/page-1/post-33123/

Another factor in sufficient protection from cold and humidity is the presence of sebaceous glands, which secrete oils onto the skin and fur, and thus protect against moisture.

In addition, mammoths had hair that hung down to their toes. But every Arctic animal has on its toes or paws there is wool, not hair. Hair They would collect snow on the ankle joint and make it difficult to walk.

The above clearly shows that fur and body fat are not evidence of adaptation to cold. The fat layer only indicates the abundance of food. A fat, overfed dog would not be able to withstand an Arctic blizzard and temperatures of -60°C. But Arctic rabbits or caribou can, despite their relatively low fat content relative to their total body weight.

As a rule, the remains of mammoths are found with the remains of, for example: tigers, antelopes, camels, horses, reindeer, giant beavers, giant bulls, sheep, musk oxen, donkeys, badgers, alpine goats, woolly rhinoceroses, foxes, giant bison, lynxes, leopards, wolverines, hares, lions, moose, giant wolves, gophers, cave hyenas, bears, as well as many species of birds. Most of these animals would not be able to survive in the Arctic climate. This is further evidence that Woolly mammoths were not polar animals.

A French prehistoric expert, Henry Neville, conducted the most detailed study of mammoth skin and hair. At the end of his careful analysis he wrote the following:

“It does not seem to me possible to find in the anatomical study of their skin and [hair] any argument in favor of adaptation to cold.”
G. Neville, On the Extinction of the Mammoth, Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1919, p. 332.

Finally, the diet of mammoths contradicts the diet of animals living in polar climates. How could a woolly mammoth maintain its vegetarian diet in the Arctic region, and eat hundreds of kilograms of greens every day, when in such a climate there are no greens for most of the year?

How could woolly mammoths find liters of water for daily consumption?

To make matters worse, woolly mammoths lived during the Ice Age, when temperatures were lower than they are today. Mammoths would not have been able to survive in the harsh climate of northern Siberia today, let alone 13 thousand years ago, if the then climate had been much harsher.

The above facts indicate that the woolly mammoth was not a polar animal, but lived in a temperate climate. Consequently, at the beginning of the Younger Dryas, 13 thousand years ago, Siberia was not an Arctic region, but a temperate one.

Younger Dryas The term Younger Dryas comes from the name of the flower ( Dryas octopetala

), growing in cold conditions and becoming widespread in Europe during this historical period, which began around 10,900 BC. (that is, 12,900 years ago) and lasted approximately 1000 years. The Younger Dryas marked the transition period between the Pleistocene Epoch and our modern era, known as the Holocene.

Younger Dryas flowers During the Younger Dryas it was observed almost throughout the Northern Hemisphere. This was the most recent and longest pause in the gradual warming of the earth's climate. To give you an idea of the intensity of the cold snap, consider the following example. The Greenland ice core GISP2 indicates that at the height of the Younger Dryas, average temperatures were 15°C lower than today.

Note, however, that the widespread cooling that occurred during this period was not uniform. While some regions experienced significant cooling (Siberia, Europe, Greenland, Alaska), other regions experienced relative warming (North America excluding Alaska, as well as the "Asian" side of Antarctica). This is an important point that we will return to later.

Along with a significant drop in temperature, another major characteristic of the Younger Dryas was mass extinction: 35 species of mammals (mastodons, giant beavers, saber-toothed tigers, giant sloths, woolly rhinoceroses, etc.), as well as 19 species of birds became extinct in a very short period.

Locations of discovery of grooved spear points from the Clovis culture

According to Hibben's estimates in North America alone, 40 million animals died. A total of deaths hundreds of millions of mammoths. Their remains were found throughout the northern part of Russia: from the Urals to the Bering Strait and even on the American continent (Alaska and Yukon). After this, there were only two regions where mammoths lived: St. Paul Island (up to 5600 years ago) and Wrangel Island (up to 4000 years ago).

Human populations were already quite common at the time(Yurok, Hopi, Kato, Arawaks, Toltecs, Inca...) and at least one of them - the Clovis culture, which inhabited North America - was wiped off the face of the Earth during that turbulent period.

The Clovis people were not a small indigenous tribe; their settlements were covered most of North America, as indicated by the geographic distribution of their artifacts, particularly fluted spear points (see map above).

Crime scene

The wide geographic scope of the extinction, as well as its relative recentness, has generated a wealth of scientific material. During numerous excavations carried out in many regions of the Northern Hemisphere, woolly mammoth burial sites show the same characteristics over and over again:

Soot: Coal and soot concentrations peaked at several Clovis sites, as well as in the Younger Dryas formation.
Fullerenes: A pure form of carbon like graphite and diamond. It is a large spherical molecule consisting of a hollow cage of 60 or more carbon atoms. High concentrations of fullerenes were found in a 12,900-year-old formation.
Potassium-40: A naturally occurring radioactive isotope with a half-life of 1.3 billion years, making up only a small fraction of all potassium on Earth. Its concentration is practically constant throughout the solar system, with the exception of meteorites, comets, and also during supernova explosions. The peak concentration of this isotope was found in the Clovis formation.
Helium-3: A typical collision marker for a body of extraterrestrial origin. Helium-3 is rare on Earth but is widely present in extraterrestrial material. The connection between asteroid impacts and helium-3 was demonstrated by Becker et al., who localized a 25-mile event dated to the Permian extinction at 250 Ma and showing high levels of helium-3. The Younger Dryas strata boundary also shows peak helium-3 concentrations.
Thorium, titanium, cobalt, nickel, uranium and other rare earth elements: High concentrations of these have been found in the Younger Dryas formation, at the Clovis site and in several meteorite craters. These elements are rare on Earth but are widespread in meteorites.
Glassy carbon: The 12,900-year-old formation is characterized by a high concentration of black glass rich in carbon. Testing showed that glassy carbon samples contained numerous . This is a sign extremely high temperatures followed by sudden cooling. Pure carbon melts at 6400°F. Only extraordinary events can create such temperatures. Glassy carbon was found only in the Clovis Formation.
Iridium: an extremely rare element in the Earth's crust, which is, however, widespread in geological strata associated with large cometary bombardments (for example, the extinction of the dinosaurs, estimated to have occurred 65 million years ago and commonly called the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, as well as the Triassic extinction , which happened approximately 200 million years ago), abnormally high concentrations of iridium are found.
Nanodiamonds: Millions of microscopic diamonds have been found at Clovis sites. Forming hexagonal diamonds requires pressure of 2 million pounds per square inch (170,000 bar) and a temperature of 1000 to 1700°C followed by rapid cooling.
Spherules: hollow magnetic balls with high carbon concentration; have been found at most Clovis era sites. Very high temperature and pressure are required to form this form of carbon. These beads are quite tiny with a diameter ranging from 10 to 50 micrometers. However, they were found in large quantities in strata of the Younger Dryas boundary: thousands of microspherules per kilogram of rock.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Magnetized microspherule found in the Younger Dryas boundary layer

This long list of elements - the atypical isotopes helium-3 and potassium-40, as well as rare earth elements such as iridium, thorium and uranium - reveal the same pattern over and over again. They are virtually absent in the natural environment, but are widespread in comets, as well as in Clovis-era strata and asteroid craters.

Exotic materials such as glassy carbon, spherules, microscopic diamonds and fullerenes tell us a similar story. Their presence indicates exceptionally high temperatures and pressures not found on Earth except during catastrophic events like asteroid impacts. All of this material was found in high concentrations at asteroid impact sites and in the Clovis culture.

However, similar events are local in nature and cannot explain flash freezing the entire Siberian region, as well as parts of Alaska and Yukon.

So what could have transported cold air from the upper atmosphere to a large region of the earth's surface? Comets and asteroids. The fact that the fall of an asteroid can cause a strong cooling of the earth's surface sounds paradoxical, because upon entering the atmosphere they heat up and, upon reaching the earth's surface, spread fire and a wave of hot air. This really yes, but is this the whole story?

Analysis of an asteroid impact at an acute angle. Density distributions are shown. The gas stream expands beyond the falling trajectory.

Atmospheric dissipation caused by a comet impact

Until recently, it was believed that asteroids could only bring fire and deadly heat. However, in 1983, one researcher proposed the idea of atmospheric dissipation caused by an asteroid impact.

Sufficiently fast and large asteroids can remove part of the Earth's atmosphere. Upon impact, the asteroid vaporizes (heat and pressure turn the asteroid into gases), as well as part of the earth's surface at the site of its impact.

Emerging a gas jet can propagate at a speed exceeding escape velocity (approximately 11.2 km/s on the Earth's surface). For comparison, the typical speed of asteroids in space is approximately 30 km/s. The escaping gas pushes the overlying layer of air into space.

The part of the atmosphere carried into space by a hot gas stream has a cone-shaped shape, known as "cone" of atmospheric dissipation.

The shape of this cone will depend on the size of the asteroid, its density, speed, and its angle of incidence relative to the earth's surface.

To better understand the process of atmospheric dissipation, let's take a look at a similar phenomenon that we are all familiar with - "water rebound".

When throwing an object into water, you can sometimes observe an upward movement of water from the place where it fell. The water behaves like a spring rebounding upward. This rebound may take the form of a column of water and/or water droplets.

Similarly, after an asteroid impact, matter and gases will move upward due to the rebound effect, enhanced by increasing ambient temperature.

Water drop

However, unlike a drop of water, they will not fall, since the speed of the material raised into the air exceeds the second cosmic speed - the speed necessary to overcome the gravity of the planet, such as, for example, a space rocket.

The figure below was inspired by the work of Russian volcanologist V. Shuvalov, who calculated the effects of cometary/asteroid bombardments on atmospheric dissipation.

Be that as it may, Shuvalov's subjects consisted of smaller bodies that fell at a higher angle than the cometary fragments that fell into Hudson Bay 12,900 years ago. I tried to apply Shuvalov's analysis to these objects that Fairstone assumed existed:

Collision with a comet fragment with a diameter of 80 km at an angle of 15°

The cometary fragment (orange ball), approximately 80 km in diameter, enters the atmosphere from the north at a very low angle (about 15°), as shown by the orange line.

Upon impact, the cometary fragment created a large but shallow primary crater approximately 300 miles in diameter (black in the picture), as well as a massive ejecta (red), which in turn created secondary craters (like the Carolina Bays craters).

Note the cone of atmospheric dissipation (turquoise) under the blue dotted line (the upper boundary of the atmosphere before dissipation begins). The diameter of this cone at ground level is approximately 1000 km. The remainder of the atmosphere (dark blue) is shown on the left and right of the figure.

Temperature of atmospheric layers

Of course, a single illustration cannot convey the magnitude of the forces and dynamics that prevail during such impacts, so allow me to provide further explanation:

First, the atmosphere around the cometary body accelerates due to friction (see blue arrow above the orange line), similar to what you experience when a car passes close to you.
During impact, the powerful wind generated along the impact path mixes with a powerful flow of super-hot gases and vaporized material; part of it reaches the second escape velocity and flies out into outer space in a powerful upward flow (see red arrow in the figure) taking with it most of the earth's atmosphere(red mass emissions). Meanwhile, the slowest parts of the ejected mass begin to fall back onto the earth's surface (black and red mass ejections).
Within a short period of time after impact a vacuum is formed in the dissipation zone(turquoise colored area). For reference: the temperature of outer space outside the earth's atmosphere reaches -270.5°C, while the temperature of the surface atmosphere is 10.17°C.
The state of vacuum is followed by a downward flow, as strong as the preceding upward flow. Supercooled air quickly fills the resulting void.

This downdraft consists of air mostly from various layers of the upper atmosphere. Since the upper layers of the atmosphere are less dense, the molecules of the air filling them move faster.

At the highest levels of the atmosphere, air temperatures average -50°C (see vertical blue line in the diagram above), although just above the mesopause it can reach -90°C.

Participates in the refilling process supercooled air, since the surrounding air, filling the vacuum, experiences pressure drop.

In addition, because part of the atmosphere has been carried away into space, the atmosphere as a whole loses volume and becomes less dense, resulting in a widespread drop in atmospheric pressure (decrease in the height of the atmospheric column).

Rarefaction of a gas actually reduces its temperature; this can be observed, for example, when using an air spray to clean the keyboard: as the pressure in the can drops, the air temperature also decreases.

In combination, these three atmospheric characteristics mentioned above (tornado-like winds, the influx of cold air from the upper atmosphere, and supercooling of the air due to decompression) may underlie the cooling factors that could easily flash-freeze mammoths and numerous other animals .

Now that we have an idea of how woolly mammoths were flash frozen, the next question arises: How did they stay frozen?

To remain frozen, they had to be in an environment below 0°C. In addition to ice sheets on our planet, such conditions are characteristic only of permafrost layers located either high in the mountains or at latitudes above 60°.

However, Siberia does not have high mountains, and at that time it extended approximately along 40° N latitude. This means that for most of the year, temperatures in Siberia were well above freezing.

To explain how mammoths remained frozen for 13,000 years, we need to take a closer look at the concept of wandering geographic poles.

Wandering geographic poles

It is widely believed that the geographic poles have always been located where they are today. However, available data shows that this is not the case. The location of the geographic poles has changed several times, even in the recent past.

Some of the best evidence for shifting geographic poles can be found in corals. Reef corals require a temperature of at least 20°C, but through geological analyses, corals have been found in some of the coldest areas today:

"In the Carboniferous formations we again find the remains of vegetation and seams of real coal in the Arctic regions. Lepidodendrons and calamites, as well as large creeping ferns were found on Spitsbergen and on Bear Island in the very north of eastern Siberia; marine deposits of the same age abound in large stony corals." (435:202)
~ Charles Hapgood The Path to the Fields, p.159

Coral lineage during the Silurian era (approximately 430 million years ago)

The Chinese oceanographer has been studying corals for decades; he was able to determine the location of ancient coral lines that more or less coincided with the equator line. The coral/equator lines he discovered ran in all directions, one of them even crossed the Arctic Ocean. Some ancient coral colonies have been found very far from today's equatorial region. Ancient coral colonies have also been discovered on Ellesmere Island, located within the Arctic Circle.

Another phenomenon that allows us to study the location of geographic poles in the past is called paleomagnetism. The method is based on the analysis of the direction of arrangement of iron particles in minerals like magnetite or hematite.

When these minerals form during a solidification process (such as after volcanic eruptions), the magnetized iron in the molten rock behaves like a compass and solidifies into a position along the Earth's magnetic field lines.

These iron particles are not only located in the direction of the magnetic north pole at some point in the past, but by their vertical deflection they also indicate how far away it was (that is, its latitude). The closer to the pole the iron particle is, the smaller its vertical deflection.

One problem with this method is that the magnetic pole is also in motion. However, over a period of several thousand years, the magnetic pole returns to its original position, so its the average position throughout the entire period coincides with the Earth's rotation axis. Thus, to reliably determine the position of the geographic pole, it is necessary to collect samples with a wide range of ages. This is why lava sheets are such valuable sources of information. Eruption after eruption they stack on top of each other, with each layer of lava pointing in the direction of the magnetic pole at the time of the eruption.

Location of the geographic pole since the Precambrian era

Charles Hapgood pieced together the locations of the geographic poles over a very long period, and the results of his research were unexpected. For example, during the Pleistocene - an era that began approximately 2,588,000 years ago and ended with the Younger Dryas - the geographic pole occupied 15 different positions.

From the Precambrian era to the present (a period of approximately 100 million years) in general 229 different locations of the geographic pole.

Now that we know that the location of the geographic poles is not constant, as previously thought, let's try to determine their location before the mentioned collision.

Location of the geographic north pole before the collision

Geology has a reliable method for determining the past position of ice caps, and therefore the past position of the geographic poles (the pole is located approximately in the center of the cap).

Northern Ice Sheet (about 13,000 years ago)

Indeed, the boundaries ice cap move under the influence of ice pressure inside them and leave grooves in the continental rock along which the ice cap crawls.

Geological studies show that during the last phase of the Pleistocene (17,000 - 13,000 years ago), the center of the Laurentian Ice Sheet was located in the Hudson Bay area (see map above).

The Laurentian ice sheet made up the bulk of the northern ice cap, which covered almost all of Canada, Greenland (except its coasts) and a small part of northern Europe. The rest of the northern hemisphere, including The Arctic Ocean, Alaska, Siberia and parts of the Yukon were ice-free.

As Hapgood wrote, the Laurentian ice sheet was similar in both shape and size to the Arctic ice sheet:

"The main evidence that the last ice cap in North America was a polar ice cap is based on its shape, size and its specific geographic location. Two geologists, Kelly and Dakhil, noted that The area occupied by the ice sheet is very similar in shape and size to today's Arctic Circle. Many others also noted his unnatural position. Apparently, the cover occupied the northeastern, and not the northern, half of the continent. No one could explain why the ice cap, which extended as far south as Ohio, did not cover some of the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the islands lying between Hudson Bay and the Pole, or why it did not cover the Yukon or northern Greenland. Next we will see a considerable amount of evidence indicating that the Arctic Ocean remained warm during the Ice Age."
~ C. Hapgood The Path to the Fields, With. 216

The above clearly indicates that before the beginning of the Younger Dryas, the north geographic pole was located in the Hudson Bay region, which is 60° north latitude, i.e. 30 degrees south of the modern north pole.

Location of the Ross Sea. The green dot shows the reverse side in Hudson Bay.

But the unusual Laurentian ice sheet isn't the only evidence we have. The study of fossils gives a very good idea of what plants and animals existed in different parts of our planet before the Younger Dryas. This work confirms that at the end of the Pleistocene the north pole was located in Hudson Bay.

Indeed, before the Younger Dryas began, the Arctic Ocean was mid-latitude (according to occurrence), Siberia had a temperate climate (according to human remains, entire forests and flora), and Japan was warmer than today (according to flora growing in temperate climates, and ).

Another piece of evidence is found in Antarctica. The geographic north pole, located in the Hudson Bay region, gives us a geographic south pole that is seven times farther from the Ross Sea in Antarctica than the pole is today. Thus, the Ross Sea should not have been covered by ice at the end of the Pleistocene (approximately 13,000 years ago).

However, this is exactly what was revealed in typical temperate climates. Such sedimentary rocks are formed by rivers that wash them away from uniced continents. Interestingly, if the north pole was located before the Younger Dryas in Hudson Bay, then this explains two mysteries that have puzzled many experts.

Location along the Road of the Dead at Teotihuacan with Hudson Bay

The first is the strange orientation of Stonehenge and Teotihucan. The main axis of symmetry of these two buildings is directed approximately to the north pole, but not very precisely (Teotihucan deviates by 15°, and Stonehenge by about 40°).

However both objects point directly towards Hudson Bay. One might wonder: what if Stonehenge and Teotihucan were built before the Younger Dryas and were aligned with the poles of that time?

Secondly, these are ancient maps showing Antarctica without ice cover. In 1531, the French geographer Orontius Phineus published a collection of ancient maps called "maps of the ancient sea kings", but the maps themselves were much older. Obviously, they were compiled by some very ancient people, preserved by subsequent civilizations (Greeks, Phoenicians, etc.) and only then discovered by Phineus.

The most striking thing about these maps is that they show Antarctica, absolutely devoid of ice. Don’t forget that at the time the maps were discovered (1531), the existence of Antarctica was not even known.

One of Orontius Phineus' maps showing Antarctica without ice.

In the beginning, the maps were not taken seriously, but when scientists began to map Antarctica, they discovered that the ancient maps were too accurate to be the result of a coincidence.

"Over several years of research, a projection of this ancient map was created. As it turned out, the map was created using a complex projection using spherical trigonometry; it was so detailed that it showed more than fifty places in Antarctica with an accuracy that modern cartography has only achieved in the nineteenth century."
~ C. Hapgood The Path to the Fields, With. 258

These data strongly suggest that approximately 13,000 years ago the geographic north pole was located in the Hudson Bay region, located at approximately 60° north latitude, that is, at a distance of 30° from the modern north pole.

In this case northern Siberia would be at 40° north latitude(today the latitude of northern Siberia is 70°, from which we subtract 30° and get 40° northern latitude).

According to Charles Hapgood, the cometary bombardment rotated the crust about 30°, causing the geographic poles to take their current positions. Calculations by Italian engineer Flavio Barbiero showed a displacement of the crust of approximately 20°.

Hapgood and Barbiero may not have been far from the truth. In any case, the displacement had to be greater than 20° to place Siberia in the permafrost zone (latitude greater than 60° N) and keep the mammoths frozen.

We now have a pretty good idea of how the mammoths were flash-frozen, and how they remained that way (crustal slippage brought the north pole closer to Siberia). However, the mammoth corpses brought with them several more confusing clues.
. It was found frozen on the banks of the Berezovka River (hence the name) in almost perfectly preserved condition.

Only part of its trunk and head had to be restored due to the fact that they were not frozen and were subsequently gnawed by predators.

It is on display at the Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg and is in a state of struggle, as it was found on the banks of Berezovka on the very edge of the Arctic Circle.

The ideal condition of frozen mammoths allowed scientists to learn a lot about mammoths as such and the cause of their death.

Mammoths are so well preserved that some scientists are attempting to use mammoth DNA to recreate them based on the DNA of Indian elephants.

Pathologists who have studied many mammoths found the same features in some of them:

fractures: The Berezovsky mammoth had many broken bones, including several ribs, a shoulder blade and a pelvis.
dirt: Found in the lungs and digestive tracts of frozen mammoths. It should be noted that the only cause of death reliably established was strangulation. At least three mammoths and two rhinoceroses suffocated. No other causes of death for the remaining mammoths were found. Vollosovich came to the conclusion that his second fossil mammoth, found on Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island with an erection of the penis, died from strangulation. One mammoth, named Dima, was found to have pulmonary edema, suggesting possible suffocation after severe physical exertion just before death. Rhinoceros Pallas also showed signs of asphyxia.
Yedoma: These are hills ranging from 10 to 80 meters in height, consisting of soil interspersed with thick ice veins. Yedomas are widespread in Siberia; their total area is approximately 1 million km2. Edomites are very rich in carbon and literally stuffed with dead trees and animals. For example, the "mammoth cemetery" is a yedoma in which at least 156 mammoths were found. The soil that makes up the Yedomas is called "loess", which literally means wind blown dust(i.e. aeolian deposit).

The disaster unfolded differently in different places.

The tragic fate of woolly mammoths

Based on the fact that ripe sedge fruits, grass and other plants were found in the stomachs of mammoths, our events take place in midsummer in a dense forest in the mid-latitudes of northern Siberia approximately 12,900 years ago.

Flash of the Chelyabinsk meteorite

First, a new star appears in the sky, the brightness of which begins to increase. It begins to be visible during the daytime, and eventually becomes brighter and larger than the Sun.

A few minutes before the collision, the “second Sun” splits into at least 5 large and many small fragments, which cross the sky over Siberia and follow their trajectories towards the north until they disappear below the horizon (flight speed is approximately 35 km/s).

The sky is streaked with fiery traces of thousands of small fragments burning in the atmosphere. A sudden wind arises, caused by the passage of a large comet fragment, which raises dust from the ground and shakes the trees.

This could explain the sudden rise in sea levels on Earth (despite Younger Dryas cooling) and the fact that Mars is a dry planet today, although there is plenty of evidence that it once had water.

But this article has already put forward enough crazy ideas (comet bombardment, atmospheric ablation, ultra-fast freezing, crustal slippage) to delve into yet another controversial topic. Whether the Earth interacted with Mars or not, it is clear that the Younger Dryas period was marked by serious disasters

. Woolly mammoths and the Clovis people were tragic witnesses to a major cosmic event that profoundly altered our planet 13,000 years ago. This event is a thorn in the side of the proponents of actualism in geology, who, despite extensive evidence, continue to deny the facts laid before them. A persistent adherence to the already refuted dogma of actualism can be found in the very basis of politics and power as described in:

Earth changes and the relationship between man and space
“The legitimacy of the ruling elite, whatever political form it takes, is based on the illusion that it is able to protect the population from war, famine, economic hardship and any other disaster that could destabilize people’s daily lives and deprive them of their livelihoods... .
By attributing these cosmic-induced phenomena to human activity, the elite maintains the illusion of control over them, at least to some extent; If people are to blame for these phenomena, then they are capable, albeit theoretically, of putting an end to them." P. Lescaudreau & L. Knight-Jadczyk,

The “blame the Russians” meme has worked so well recently for Western ruling elites that the temptation to use it in such a critical context may be too great. I can already see the CNN headline: "Crazy and terrible Vladimir, who is already behind all the problems on the planet, pressed the button and everything exploded."

Frozen mammoths

There are many theories among evolutionary scientists regarding the causes of the Ice Age. Discussions on this issue have been going on for about a hundred years, but no agreement has been reached. In fact, however, no evolutionary theory can satisfactorily explain the sudden formation of huge continental ice sheets, and the associated catastrophic death and burial of mammoths in Alaska, Siberia and Northern Europe. The rocks believed to correspond to previous eras almost all indicate a temperate or subtropical climate, i.e., one day mammoths quietly graze in fields in a temperate climate, and the next day they suddenly freeze and are buried in ice and mud.

The mystery of the frozen giants - the mammoths - illustrates the insurmountable problem facing any evolutionary and uniformitarian theory about the causes of the Ice Age. Many of these furry, extinct ancestors of modern elephants are found instantly frozen in a layer of permafrost. Some - for example, the famous Berezovsky mammoth - found food in their mouths and stomachs. The skin of the mammoths shows that they were not particularly adapted to arctic conditions, nor were the great cats, bison, wolves, bears and horses buried in the same sediments. Therefore, when it comes to mammoths, there is no need to associate them with ice. Mammoth bones have also been found in Mexico.

Some of the plants found in the stomach of the Berezovsky mammoth do not grow this far north today. And so that the gastric juice did not have time to digest these plants, the Berezovsky mammoth had to be frozen very quickly.

The bones of millions of mammoths (and other Animals found with them) are buried in Europe, Alaska and Siberia. Where the soil did not remain frozen, no meat was preserved on them. Where it remains frozen (and there is not enough vegetation on which herds would graze these days), pieces of bodies of varying degrees of decomposition are usually recovered. Although in most cases individual pieces of mammoths are found, to date scientists have been able to study about forty practically whole frozen carcasses.

One thing is clear from this. The instantaneous freezing of these mammoths cannot be explained by uniformitarian and evolutionary geology, with its idea of the gradual onset of an ice age over tens or hundreds of years.

Translated from Finnish the word "mammoth" means "earth mole". The name is associated with the legend of supernatural creatures Sikhirti. The ancient people of Sikhirti, who once went into the bowels of the earth and still live there, have underground deer that love to wander under the Moon on the surface of the Earth. But God forbid the underground deer see the sun's rays - they will immediately be overtaken by inevitable death! Guess who we're talking about? It is mammoths that are recognized as legendary deer.

And there is some truth in this fantastic legend. The fact is that sometimes entire corpses of mammoths, untouched by time, are found on the surface of permafrost. Wool, skin, entrails - everything was preserved in perfect condition. Often unique finds could not be preserved. In a matter of days, the huge carcasses were eaten by dogs, wolves and lemengs.

Mammoth- a large herd animal from the elephant family. Body height at the withers is 3-4 meters, weight is 5-6 tons. The reddish-brown hair reached 1.2 meters. Skin up to 2 cm thick and long hair with thick soft undercoat. The tusks of old individuals grew up to 4 meters and weighed more than 100 kg. The mammoth is a herbivore; it ate up to half a ton of plant food per day. The lifespan of a mammoth is 70-80 years. The fertility of this mammal was very low, sexual maturity occurred by 11-15 years. The range of mammoths and mammoth fauna (bison, woolly rhinoceros, musk ox, etc.) was extremely extensive. The bone remains of these representatives of ancient animals are found almost throughout the northern hemisphere of the Earth. Finds that are especially frequent and in good condition are typical for Eastern Siberia. This is explained by the cold climatic conditions and such a natural phenomenon of these places as permafrost (which binds the subsoil for hundreds of meters). So, the first point of view

Gradual cooling

Africa is considered the ancestral home of mammoths. Researchers have found that the ancestors of the mammoth and its accompanying fauna appeared in the north more than a million years ago and existed throughout the Ice Age. At its beginning, the climate was moderately cold, and permafrost was forming. Then, throughout the entire period, a gradual cooling occurs, interrupted by short epochs of interglacial warming. About 20 thousand years ago, during the next glaciation, a very cold, sharply continental climate was established, and tundra-steppes with abundant grass vegetation developed. Mammoths and mammoth fauna adapt well to such extreme natural conditions, reaching their greatest development during this period as modern mammals.

Result: Gradual cooling, long-term development of a cold climate. In this cooling process, mammoths, like other animals, gradually adapt to new cold living conditions.

Second point of view

A sharp cooling in the polar regions and the sudden extinction of mammoths. The dome theory easily solves the problem of the extinction of mammoths. Findings of fresh frozen mammoths are not uncommon in northern Siberia. The problem with the extinction of mammoths is that now in the north of Siberia there is not that huge amount of food that is necessary for the life of a mammoth - a mammoth needs more food than an elephant. And in the north of Siberia there is such severe frost (from -40oC to -60oC) that neither mammoths nor elephants will be able to adapt to such low temperatures. With a very short summer and low solar radiation, the possibility of growing plants suitable for food for such giants is simply negligible. Suggestions that mammoths were able to adapt to moss, lichens and dwarf plants are also questionable. In addition, extinct praslons are found in their mouths with flowers that simply do not grow there now. So, since now mammoths do not live in the Arctic regions and there is no food for them, it can be assumed that once upon a time a warm climate reigned in the early Arctic with an abundance of food for mammoths.

Mammoths are found “fresh frozen”, sometimes with gladiolus flowers in their mouths, such as the mammoth from Berezovka (Yakutsk). Gladiolus does not grow in Yakutsk now. We dare to say that the mammoths were buried with lightning speed...

However, at the same time, they still had nothing to eat in the north of Siberia, and even more so on the New Siberian Islands, since this is generally a polar desert. A 9 cm layer of fat on a mammoth indicates the abundance of food and the ease of its extraction.
Severe frost would cause rapid fat burning to maintain body temperature. This is why northern animals such as deer have very little fat. This means that mammoths clearly did not live in the cold.
Like mammoths, modern tropical rhinoceroses also have a large layer of subcutaneous fat - precisely due to the lack of frost and abundance of food.
The Nenets and other northern peoples perfectly protect themselves from frost with the help of reindeer skins, which have particularly low thermal conductivity and therefore protect very strongly from the cold. The layer of fat does not play any role here.

So the 9 cm layer of fat in mammoths does not indicate protection from frost at all, but rather a very warm climate, an abundance of food and the ease of obtaining it.

Just as a large amount of wool on a Malaysian elephant does not refute the fact that Malaysia has a hot climate (at the equator), so a large amount of wool on a mammoth does not refute the fact that there used to be a warm climate in Siberia. As a result of a comparative study of the skin of a mammoth and an Indian elephant, their complete identity in thickness and structure was demonstrated.

So, mammoths are related to heat-loving elephants, which are now found in such hot regions as India and Africa, and mammoths were most likely as heat-loving as elephants. This means that northern Siberia once had a very warm climate. And this is also explainable by the greenhouse effect caused by the steam-water dome: as a result of the dome, the Arctic had a warm climate, so there was abundant vegetation, which the North Siberian mammoths fed on. And that is why the remains of lions and camels, heat-loving animals, as well as dinosaurs, warm-blooded reptiles, are found in the Alaskan tundra. In regions where no trees now grow at all, large trees have been found along with the remains of horses and mammoths.

The steam-water dome theory can explain the disappearance of dinosaurs and mammoths, but for uniformitarian geochronology (i.e. without catastrophes) this is inexplicable. When an asteroid fell to Earth, which split the former unified continent, water vapor above the Earth's atmosphere condensed and fell in the form of a powerful torrential rain, 12 meters of precipitation fell. This rain also made a partial contribution to the mud flows that washed away animals and formed stratigraphic layers. With the destruction of the dome, the greenhouse effect on Earth disappeared and, as a result, cooling. Since then, the Arctic and Antarctic have been covered with snow and ice. Therefore, this is what happened to the North Siberian mammoths: during the dome era, the Arctic had a warm climate, so there was abundant vegetation on which the mammoths ate, and then they were hit by heavy rain and arctic cold. As a result, the mammoths were buried at lightning speed (the “fresh frozen” effect) in the resulting permafrost.

So, the only solution to the riddle of the existence and disappearance of mammoths in northern Siberia is a catastrophe and a breach of the dome.

Afterword

The northern regions of Alaska and Siberia appear to have suffered the most from the deadly cataclysms 13,000 to 11,000 years ago. It was as if death had swung its scythe along the Arctic Circle - the remains of a myriad of large animals were discovered there, including a large number of carcasses with intact soft tissues, and an incredible number of perfectly preserved mammoth tusks.

The permafrost in which the remains of these animals are buried in Alaska resembles fine, dark gray sand. Professor Hibben from the University of New Mexico states that: “... parts of animals and trees, interspersed with layers of ice, layers of peat and moss lie twisted... Bison, horses, wolves, bears, lions... Whole herds of animals apparently died together, struck down by some common evil force... Such piles of bodies of animals and people do not form under normal conditions...” Remember the monstrous photographs after the tsunami in Malaysia...

At different levels of the earth, it was possible to find stone tools frozen at a considerable depth next to the remains of the fauna of the Ice Age; this confirms that humans were contemporaries of extinct animals in Alaska. In the permafrost of Alaska one can also find “...evidence of atmospheric disturbances of incomparable power. Mammoths and bison were torn to pieces and twisted as if some cosmic hands of the gods were at work in fury. In one place we discovered the front leg and shoulder of a mammoth; the blackened bones still held remnants of soft tissue adjacent to the spine along with tendons and ligaments, and the chitinous shell of the tusks was not damaged. There were no traces of dismemberment of the carcasses with a knife or other weapon (as would be the case if hunters were involved in the dismemberment). The animals were simply torn apart and scattered across the area like products made from woven straw, although some of them weighed several tons. Mixed in with the accumulations of bones are trees, also torn, twisted and tangled; all this is covered with fine-grained quicksand, subsequently frozen tightly.”

...According to the descriptions of the researchers who discovered the New Siberian Islands, which lie beyond the Arctic Circle, they consist almost entirely of bones and tusks of mammoths. The only logical conclusion, as French zoologist Georges Cuvier pointed out, is that “permafrost did not previously exist where the animals froze, because at such temperatures they would not have survived. The country where they lived froze at the same moment when these creatures lost their lives.”

Mammoths died suddenly, during a sharp cold snap, and in large numbers. Death came so quickly that the ingested vegetation remained undigested... Herbs, bluebells, buttercups, sedges and wild legumes were found in their mouths and stomachs, which remained quite recognizable.

And then paleoclimatologists came onto the scene, who were absolutely indifferent to what linguists, anthropologists, cultural experts thought about this... According to drilling data, they found out that from 130 to 70 thousand years ago the northern territories between 55 and 70 degrees were located in optimal climate conditions. Average winter temperatures here were 12 degrees higher than now, and average summer temperatures were 8 degrees higher. This means that in those days there was the same climate as we have now in the south of France or the north of Spain! The climatic zones then were located differently than they are now - the further south, the warmer, but then it was warmer to the east, closer to the Urals.

http://arcticshop.ru

As for ice ages, only one of them can be spoken with certainty - the one that is usually associated with the last one on the evolutionary scale of the geological chronology during the so-called Pleistocene. It was just before the modern era when man began to leave written records. According to evolutionists, this ice age began about two million years ago and ended about 11,000 years ago. For their part, most creationists believe that the Ice Age began shortly after the Flood and lasted less than a thousand years.

Earlier Ice Ages?

Evolutionists argue that there have been ice ages before, for example in the late Precambrian and Permian periods on the so-called geological scale. However, there is no clear evidence for this, since the paucity of comparative studies of sedimentary rocks of these geological periods with ribbon clays and tillites of the present Ice Age leaves the question open to other interpretations and explanations.

Band clays, for example, are alternating sandy and clayey strata that are generally believed to be the result of a slow process of sedimentation in glacial lakes beneath glaciers. It is believed that each pair of layers forms an annual ribbon of summer and winter layers of sediment transported into the lake. However, Lambert and Sue, based on the results of studies of one of the lakes in Switzerland, showed that such deposits, such as ribbon clays, can form much more quickly under the influence of a catastrophic eruption of water carrying sedimentary rocks. In one place, five pairs of layers of ribbon clays formed in just a year. At Mount St. Helens in the United States, a 25-foot-tall (7.6-meter) sheet-like deposit consisting of numerous thin layers of band-like clay formed in less than a day (June 12, 1980). Moreover, other examples given, such as the formation of furrow-shaped rocks, for example, in the Adelaide region of Australia, do not provide convincing evidence of earlier ice ages, as is so often claimed.

We still are. We can observe the effects of the Ice Age, in particular the polar ice caps, alpine glaciers, as well as numerous glacial landscapes and deposits.

The effects of the actual ice age are before you, including the polar ice caps, alpine glaciers, and numerous landscapes and sediments. Since its effects are now visible on the earth's surface, it is clear that the Ice Age occurred immediately after the Flood.

During the Ice Age, a continental ice sheet located somewhere northeast of the Canada-Greenland region advanced into North America, reaching as far south as the northern United States, forming the Great Lakes along the way. Other effects of ice movement were mounds (moraines) of sand, gravel, and boulders (tillites) with grooves, grooves in the bedrock, and clay-banded glacial deposits in lakes. The same ice cover advanced over Northern Europe from Scandinavia, reaching Germany, France, Italy and England. In the North American mountains, the European Alps and other mountain ranges, permanent ice caps remain on the peaks, and extensive glaciers descend into the valleys.

Other sheets of ice covered parts of the Southern Hemisphere from Antarctica to New Zealand, Tasmania, parts of southeastern Australia and southern Chile. A few glaciers still remain in the southern Alps of New Zealand's south island, but in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales and in rugged Tasmania to the west and southwest, only a glacial landscape remains as a reminder of the action of the ice sheet during the Ice Age.

During the Ice Age, continental ice, centered somewhere northeast of Canada's Greenland region, advanced into North America. The same layers of ice advanced over Northern Europe and parts of the Southern Hemisphere.

In almost all modern textbooks we read that geologists talk about at least three advances and retreats of ice ages, interspersed with warm periods (called interglacials). However, as for earlier advances, for example, in North America, moraines and sheet-like formations of the last ice age are completely absent from them. Dense layers of clay, ancient river beds and other phenomena considered as evidence of early ice advances can be explained more likely by the action of water than by the result of ancient glaciations.

Human activity

It is important to note that ice never covered the entire Earth, although this is exactly what many people imagine. Ice never covered more than a third of the earth's surface, even during its greatest extent. While there was glaciation in the upper latitudes, there was apparently a period of more intense precipitation in the lower latitudes. These precipitations in the lower latitudes ensured the supply of water even to such desert zones as the Sahara, Gobi and Arabian Desert. Indeed, archaeological excavations have provided compelling evidence of human activity and complex irrigation management in these now desert regions.

Evidence of human activity in the lower latitudes throughout the Ice Age is abundant. Neanderthals, for example, apparently lived near the tip of the ice sheet in Europe, and many modern anthropologists believe their rough features are explained by diseases (rickets, arthritis) caused by cold, dampness and lack of sunlight in the areas where they then lived .

There is no reason to believe (apart from highly controversial dating methods) that these peripheral cultures were not contemporaneous with the advanced civilizations of Egypt, Babylon and others that developed at lower latitudes. The Ice Age is easier to understand over a period of a few hundred years than over a period of two million years.

Frozen mammoths

Biblical explanation

What cannot be reconciled and unraveled by the methods of evolutionary geology with its idea of slow and gradual changes is quite satisfactorily explained by the biblical records of the catastrophic upheavals during the Flood. It is clear from Scripture that before the Flood there were excellent conditions of life and climate throughout the world, the latter apparently being caused by the greenhouse effect due to the extensive thermal blanket in the form of a transparent vapor-water shell (the water above the firmament, as mentioned in Genesis 1:7) . There were no rainfalls, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, storms or other similar physical phenomena. The world was created as a “very good” (Genesis 1:31) home for man and animals.

With the Flood, however, everything changed. The shell of water condensed and fell to the Earth in 40 days in the form of a powerful downpour, in addition, water and magma erupted from underground through the “springs of the great deep” (apparently volcanic) for a long five months (150 days) (Genesis 7:11, 8:2). During and immediately after the Flood, the Earth was shaken by powerful shocks, and various kinds of catastrophic phenomena continued on a smaller scale afterwards.

Did this freeze, which formed the polar ice caps and caused the flash-freezing of mammoths, occur immediately after the Great Flood that buried millions of these animals in the current permafrost? Or did it occur as a result of some great catastrophe after the Flood, perhaps in the “days of Peleg” when the earth was “divided” (Genesis 10:25)? Among the hypotheses explaining the freezing mechanism, one can note a collision with an asteroid, the destruction of a steam-water shell, as well as a sudden collapse of ice from a large space alien - a comet.

Whatever the correct answer, it is clear that there has been a rapid and long-lasting climate change over a large area of the Earth, accompanied by the death of countless millions of animals in vast frozen cemeteries where the ground never thawed.

Among other possible mechanisms that caused the Ice Age, the collapse of the water-steam shell at the beginning of the Flood undoubtedly played a role, and this gradually destroyed the greenhouse effect, and the Arctic and Antarctic zones became very cold. During and immediately after the Flood, the enormous thermal energy that emerged from the depths converted enormous amounts of water into steam, and this steam moved in large quantities to the poles under the influence of the atmospheric circulation that developed after the Flood and fell there in the form of huge amounts of snow. Soon the accumulated snow turned into ice slabs, which began to creep away from their place of concentration.

Large amounts of volcanic dust from post-Flood volcanic eruptions likely remained in the atmosphere, causing Earth's temperature to drop greatly by reflecting much of the sun's radiation. Moreover, this volcanic dust apparently filled the atmosphere for hundreds of years after the Flood due to continued volcanic activity, as evidenced by the large amount of volcanic rock in the sediments of the periods immediately following the Flood (apparently in the so-called Tertiary and Pleistocene). Such accompanying processes contributed to a decrease in temperature in the atmosphere, on land and in the ocean, which accelerated the formation of continental ice sheets.

Interestingly, some references to the Ice Age can be found in the book of Job (37:9–10, 38:22–23, 29–30), who apparently lived at the end of it. (Job lived in the land of Uz, a descendant of Shem [Genesis 10], so even the most conservative biblical scholars agree that Job probably lived between the times of the Tower of Babel and Abraham.) The Lord asked Job from the storm, “From whose belly?” ice and frost from heaven come out - who gives birth to it? The waters grow strong like a rock, and the surface of the deep freezes” (Job 38:29-30). Such questions assume that Job knew, either from his own experience or from family memories, what the Lord was talking about. There is no doubt that this is a reference to both the suddenness of the onset of the Ice Age and its consequences.

Consequences

The surface of the earth that rose from the waters of the Flood was, of course, devoid of vegetation, since what grew on the earth before the Flood was destroyed and/or buried. As a result of the upheaval caused by the Flood, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere also apparently decreased (large amounts of carbon dioxide dissolved in the waters of the Flood, and even more combined with calcium carbonates to form limestone). Over time, however, the surviving grains and branches of pre-Flood plants took root and sprouted again, while the multiplying environment began to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere again. Large peat bogs likely appeared at the boundaries of the ice sheets, and peat bog vegetation is known to be particularly effective at releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Thanks to these processes, enough of this gas eventually accumulated in the atmosphere, causing temperatures to rise to levels sufficient to begin melting the ice and retreating to its present limits.

Over the centuries, while the Ice Age lasted, many large animals that emerged from the Ark and initially survived and reproduced, over time, due to fundamental changes in climate and environment, lost the ability to reproduce and became extinct, some, like mammoths, died out as a result of a catastrophe, associated with these dramatic changes. When the ice later began to recede and rainfall conditions changed again, many wet areas (with plenty of water) became dry, causing even more animals to become extinct. The great cataclysm of the Flood, followed by smaller catastrophes of glaciation, volcanic activity and then dehydration (drought), radically changed the features of the Earth and its inhabitants.

Notes:

Henry Morris, John Whiicomo. The Genesis Hood.

Lambert, A. and Hsu, K. J., 1979. Non-annual cycles of varve-like sedimentation in Walensee, Switzerland. Sedirnentology, vol. 26, pp. 453-461.

Austin, S. A., 1986. Mount St. Helens and catastrophisffl. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, vol. 1, pp. 3–9.

This does not mean that such grooves in the rocks were not caused by ice; it is quite possible that they were caused by the glaciation of the present ice age, but there is no need to talk about any earlier ice ages.

The most interesting and thorough compilation of available information regarding frozen mammoths can be found in the book The Waters Above by Dr. Joseph C. Dillow, Moody Press, Chicago (1981).

NOTE: In writing this chapter, materials were used from Henry Morris's article "Ice Age" in the journal Creation Ex Nihilo, vol. 11 (2), 1989, pp. 10-12. We express our gratitude.