Ice Age Floods cause mass extinctions?

[nannoh]

During the last Ice Age (18,000 to 12,000 years ago), and in multiple previous Ice Ages, cataclysmic floods inundated portions of the Pacific Northwest from Glacial Lake Missoula, pluvial Lake Bonneville, and perhaps from subglacial outbursts. Glacial Lake Missoula was a body of water as large as some of the USA's Great Lakes. This lake formed from glacial meltwater that was dammed by a lobe of the Canadian ice sheet. Episodically, perhaps every 40 to 140 years, the waters of this huge lake forced its way past the ice dam, inundating parts of the Pacific Northwest. Eventually, the ice receded northward far enough that the dam did not reform, and the flooding episodes ceased.

http://www.iceagefloodsinstitute.org/

It was in 1923 that J Harlen Bretz published the first in a series of scientific papers in which he proposed that the severely eroded Channeled Scabland, Dry Falls, and other immense geologic features had been formed by a huge, powerful flood that had swept through the Columbia Basin during the Ice Age.

Despite his peers’ doubt and opposition, he resolutely maintained that direct examination of the geologic evidence could lead only to that conclusion. But Bretz was unable to identify the source or cause of such catastrophic flooding.

Earlier, in 1910, another geologist, Joseph T. Pardee, had described evidence of a great ice dammed lake, Glacial Lake Missoula, that had formed during the Ice Age in northwestern Montana. However, Bretz didn't see the connection between the glacial lake in Montana and the features he described in Eastern Washington. Then, in 1940, Pardee reported on his discovery of giant ripple marks, 50 feet high and 200-500 feet apart, that had formed on the floor of Glacial Lake Missoula. These huge, current-related features, along with other newly-found landforms, dramatically confirmed that the lake had suddenly emptied to the west, unleashing the tremendously powerful erosive forces that shaped many of the landforms found in the Columbia Basin.

More research followed, and new perspectives became available from aerial photography. Among geologists, the concept of a catastrophic flood came to be accepted by the late 1950s.

http://www.iceagefloodsinstitute.org/aboutfloods/puzzlesolved.html

Drumlins and subglacial meltwater floods.

Since 1983, several investigators have developed a theory of drumlin formation by catastrophic flooding due to the release of meltwater that is believed to have accumulated beneath melting ice sheets. The proposed catastrophic sheet floods, as wide as the drumlin fields, formed the drumlins and related streamlined landforms, such as flutings, over wide areas. So-called rogen moraine, consisting of transverse ridges of drift, often found associated with drumlins, is reinterpreted in the meltwater flood hypothesis as possible giant current ripples.

http://www.sentex.net/~tcc/sgfcrit.html

Question and answer with geologist Dr. John Shaw

http://www.sentex.net/~tcc/sgfrep.html


These articles and many others disclose a little known catastophic chapter in the Earth's history that appears to raise a range of questions about the cause of many geological features in certain areas to the sudden and wide spead mass extinctions that took place around the same time as these aleged floods.

You can give your opinion, pro or con, with supporting reference material, in the space below. Thank you.

 

[Bystander]

Homework? You've got papers on the scablands, history of mainstream geological thoughts, and the "recent" synthesis of the available evidence for large, repetitive, localized flood events; how are you getting from local flooding to mass extinction?

 

[nannoh]

Homework? You've got papers on the scablands, history of mainstream geological thoughts, and the "recent" synthesis of the available evidence for large, repetitive, localized flood events; how are you getting from local flooding to mass extinction?

You're right to point that out. I am referring to the Mammoths and other northern mega-fauna:

Web definitions for Mass extinction:

The name given to a period of especially high rates of extinction of species. Several such events are seen in the fossil record.

palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/communication/boulton/glossary.html

- Definition in context

How do we define a Mass Extinction? Traditionally, within geological sciences, mass extinctions have been seen as some type of catastrophe for the world's biota. There have been many, long-term discussions about the importance of such catastrophes during Earth history, and especially about their importance for long-term evolution. In Darwin's time (1850-1860s) the view that catastrophes were an integral part of evolution was frowned upon, and seen as a fall-back to ancient theories of catastrophism, as exemplified by the description of Noah's flood in the Bible. This view has changed recently, and modern ideas of catastrophism are part of an active discussion of 'internal' and 'external' causes of evolution. Internal causes meaning causes internal to the biota (such as competition, evolution of diseases), external meaning causes external to the biota (such as volcanic eruptions or nuclear war).

http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/mass_extinctions.htm

Homework?

 

[Bystander]

Yes, if it looks like homework, the forum policy is that the question go into the "Homework Help" area, and that the poster demonstrate effort toward answering the question.

Again, how do you propose to connect local flooding events to extinction events?

 

[nannoh]

Yes, if it looks like homework, the forum policy is that the question go into the "Homework Help" area, and that the poster demonstrate effort toward answering the question.

Again, how do you propose to connect local flooding events to extinction events?

Evidence shows that the on slaught of Ice Age floods was not so localized:

Hills point to catastrophic Ice Age floods

Fields of low hills that cover parts of inland Canada and the northern United States may seem quite distant from the watery world of Atlantis. Yet a Canadian geologist proposes these hills formed from huge Ice Age floods that sharply raised global sea levels and could have spawned myths of a swamped continent.

"There's nothing in recorded history that matches the size of these floods," says John Shaw of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, who has estimated the extent of the floods from the size of the ridges.

Called drumlins--a word derived from Old Irish -- these hills appear in concentrated fields in North America, Scandinavia, Britain and other areas once covered by ice. When seen from above, the aligned knolls sometimes look like a basket of eggs lying on their sides and pointing in the same direction. Some drumlins are made of sediments deposited onto bedrock; others are ridges carved out of the rock.

Most geologists believe drumlins developed gradually from the grinding action of heavy ice sheets as they moved over the land. But in the last several years, Shaw and others have proposed the controversial idea that floods of water flowing beneath the ice created many of the North American drumlins and possibly others around the world. They base this hypothesis on the shapes drumlins share with other land forms sculpted by meltwater.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n14_v136/ai_8002743

Also see this article:

Himalayan Ice Dams Created Huge Lakes, Floods

Environment News Service, December, 2004

SEATTLE, Washington (ENS) — --> Ice dams across the deepest gorge on Earth created some of the highest elevation lakes in history, according to new research from University of Washington geologist David Montgomery, a professor of Earth and space sciences.

The most recent of these lakes, in the Himalaya Mountains of Tibet, broke through its ice barrier somewhere between 600 and 900 AD, causing massive torrents of water to pour through the Himalayas into India, Montgomery said.

Geological evidence points to the existence of at least three lakes, and probably four, at various times in history when glacial ice from the Himalayas blocked the flow of the Tsangpo River in Tibet, he said .

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmens/is_200412/ai_n8609042

And further evidence of a European ice age meltdown:

The Baltic Sea, with its unique brackish water, is a result of meltwater from the Weichsel glaciation combining with saltwater from the North Sea when the straits between Sweden and Denmark opened. Initially, when the ice began melting about 10,300 ybp, seawater filled the isostatically depressed area, a temporary marine incursion that geologists dub the Yoldia Sea. Then as post-glacial isostatic rebound lifted the region about 9500 ybp, the deepest basin of the Baltic became a freshwater lake, in palaeological contexts referred to as Ancylus lake, which is identifiable in the freshwater fauna found in sediment cores. The lake was filled by glacial runoff, but as worldwide sea level continued rising, saltwater again breached the sill about 8000 ybp, forming a marine Littorina Sea which was followed by another freshwater phase before the present brackish marine system was established. "At its present state of development, the marine life of the Baltic Sea is less than about 4000 years old," Drs Thulin and Andrushaitis remarked when reviewing these sequences in 2003.
Overlaying ice had exerted pressure on the Earth's surface. As a result of melting ice, the land has continued to rise yearly in Scandinavia, mostly in northern Sweden and Finland where the land is rising at a rate of as much as 8-9 mm per year, or 1 meters in 100 years. This is important for archeologists since a village that was coastal in the Nordic Stone Age now is inland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_glaciation

This article has other examples of other areas as well.

This type of study is relatively new and so not many sites have been thoroughly surveyed. My question is more about if anyone has further evidence of these floods around the world and if this type of catastrophic event could have contributed to the demise of mega fauna in north america, siberia and mongolia or related areas.

Just asking for a little help here. Plus, its a fascinating study, don't you agree?!

 

[Andre]

There might be an interconnection between all those "floods" and extinctions but it's probably a lot more complicated.

The late Pleistocene megafauna extinction started around 14000 calendar years ago with horses in Alaska and woolly rhinos in Eurasia and it ended probably 4150 Calendar years ago with the last population of woolly mammoths on Wrangel island.

The Alaskan horses decreased notably in size during their last few milleniums of existence and this is also true for most woolly mammoth populations. Furthermore, together with extinction of the horses was a strong population explosion from modern megafauna like elk and bison. There is also distinct evidence of biotope change from dry steppe to wood-lands. No signs of floods there as far I know.

The bulk of the extinction appeared to have been around the end of the Younger Dryas between 11,500 and 10,500 years but the giant (irish) Elk survived until some 6000 years ago. There may be a case for the Americal mastodons as well having survived to a few milleniums ago.

Not only Eurasia and North America but the extinction took also place in South America, mostly giant sloths, mastodon and Gomphotherium (four tusked elephants).

Now it could be that many factors contributed to the extinctions, however if such contribution is dispensable, it's not the common cause. Humans may have killed some, even a lot of megafauna but certainly not all. Floods may have flushed away many specimens. Diseases may have decimated weakened hurds. But the common denominator for all extinctions appears to be change in habitat and consequently the loss of the battle for survival.

The changes in habitat appear to have one comemon cause: climate changes. Those were there all the time.

See also:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=127240

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=126676

 

[Bystander]

Evidence shows that the on slaught of Ice Age floods was not so localized:

Each event is local. Did flood events take place over a large area of the world? Sure, but not simultaneously.

(snip)

This type of study is relatively new and so not many sites have been thoroughly surveyed. My question is more about if anyone has further evidence of these floods around the world and if this type of catastrophic event could have contributed to the demise of mega fauna in north america, siberia and mongolia or related areas.

Just asking for a little help here. Plus, its a fascinating study, don't you agree?!

The debate between "catastrophism" and "uniformitarianism" has moved to the middle ground of "both." There are little catastrophes (local) and global catastrophes --- you need something on a global scale to rationalize mass extinction events, and sporadic collapses of ice dams on meltwater lakes don't really fit into that category. Yes, local populations of this, that, or the other can be wiped out, and surviving populations from elsewhere expand into the cleared area to be wiped out during the next event. Wipe out every population everywhere at one time? No.

 

[nannoh]

There might be an interconnection between all those "floods" and extinctions but it's probably a lot more complicated.

The late Pleistocene megafauna extinction started around 14000 calendar years ago with horses in Alaska and woolly rhinos in Eurasia and it ended probably 4150 Calendar years ago with the last population of woolly mammoths on Wrangel island.

The Alaskan horses decreased notably in size during their last few milleniums of existence and this is also true for most woolly mammoth populations. Furthermore, together with extinction of the horses was a strong population explosion from modern megafauna like elk and bison. There is also distinct evidence of biotope change from dry steppe to wood-lands. No signs of floods there as far I know.

The bulk of the extinction appeared to have been around the end of the Younger Dryas between 11,500 and 10,500 years but the giant (irish) Elk survived until some 6000 years ago. There may be a case for the Americal mastodons as well having survived to a few milleniums ago.

Not only Eurasia and North America but the extinction took also place in South America, mostly giant sloths, mastodon and Gomphotherium (four tusked elephants).

Now it could be that many factors contributed to the extinctions, however if such contribution is dispensable, it's not the common cause. Humans may have killed some, even a lot of megafauna but certainly not all. Floods may have flushed away many specimens. Diseases may have decimated weakened hurds. But the common denominator for all extinctions appears to be change in habitat and consequently the loss of the battle for survival.

The changes in habitat appear to have one comemon cause: climate changes. Those were there all the time.

See also:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=127240

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=126676

This is great! Thank you Andre for bringing some perspective about root causes of meltdowns and that sort of thing. If would follow that an in depth study of the cause of prehistoric climate change would be underway, as it seems to be according to your threads. The Earth's climate cycle appears to have a long wave frequency to it that is about as predictable as the weather!

 

[nannoh]

Each event is local. Did flood events take place over a large area of the world? Sure, but not simultaneously.

(snip)


The debate between "catastrophism" and "uniformitarianism" has moved to the middle ground of "both." There are little catastrophes (local) and global catastrophes --- you need something on a global scale to rationalize mass extinction events, and sporadic collapses of ice dams on meltwater lakes don't really fit into that category. Yes, local populations of this, that, or the other can be wiped out, and surviving populations from elsewhere expand into the cleared area to be wiped out during the next event. Wipe out every population everywhere at one time? No.

You're right bystander. There appears to be floods that built up and took place in different areas of the planet at different times. This seems to answer my question about extinctions and floods. Not too much to go on that says a whole species was wiped out because of a flood. Perhaps sub-species were displaced as you say but not whole species. These sub-glacial build ups and the supra-glacial lakes didn't seem to cause any where near as much of an extinction as the large body impact of 65 million years ago that left a crater in the gulf of mexico.

It was a mistake for me to include the extinction possiblity with this thread. I wish I could edit my title. The Ice Age Flood analytical studies are facsinating enough without the idea of a bunch of drowning mammoths. Thank you for at least reading some of what I've written here.

 

[Pythagorean]

we had horses in Alaska?

 

[Andre]

You bet

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v426/n6963/abs/nature02098.html

 

[nannoh]

What gets me is everytime I search ice age floods on google I get these creationist sites trying to allocate some sort of significance of the biblical floods to these catastrophic releases of meltwater from glaciers.

The only connection I see between the biblical floods and ice age floods is that, at one time, a record was made of these flood events and it ended up in the biblical record. This would be a record surviving from around 9000 years ago around when the last glacial maximum began to subside.

 

[Andre]

Well considering all kinds of natural floodings world wide, it's not that strange that there is an incredible amount of flood tales.

But this is for amusement only, there is no evidence or connection anywhere. It may be noted though that the multiple spikes in the Greenland Ice cores between 14,500 and 12800 Calendar years BP, known as the Bolling Allerod event and the onset of the Holoceen as of 11,650 Calendar years ago, do show a remarkakle climate change that is alleged to be mostly temperature but in the geologic proxies it mostly shows as precipitation changes. And quite severly. But not Noah's flood.

It appear that this also caused the spikes in the extinction events.

 

[mhalavo]

It was a mistake for me to include the extinction possiblity with this thread. I wish I could edit my title. The Ice Age Flood analytical studies are facsinating enough without the idea of a bunch of drowning mammoths. Thank you for at least reading some of what I've written here.

I don't think it was a mistake. Some believe that he massive amounts of freshwater released into the oceans from these floods shut down the thermohaline current:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8558

This event possibly triggered wide reaching climate change that "could" of caused extinctions.

 

[Mk]

I was very surprised when I heard Al Gore say that in his masterpiece movie. He said a large flood completely shut down thermohaline circulation! Egads!

 

[Andre]

No, there are still looking for the source of all that alleged melt water, it could not be the Mississippi area, because that stopped flowing. It could not be the Saint Lawrence River, dates of the evidence is wrong there. It could not be the Hudson bay, - no evidence. etc,

My guess is that it was when the clathrate gun of the Amazon fan stopped 12,800 years ago which also stopped the increased surface flow to the north.

 

[nannoh]

There is recorded evidence in India, as recent as the 1800s, where a build up of meltwater was suddenly released by a glacial dam in the Himalayas and annihilated 7000 men in the Sikh Army who were camped in the vicinity.

There are quite a few facts from that area about Ice Age Floods that I will be able to offer at a later date, including a reference for the record of the Sikh Army losses to meltwater flooding in the 1800s.

These Ice Age and Glacial meltwater release events held an emense power that has not been as thoroughly studied as other geological and oceanic events. It is said that the meltwater of the Ice Age, over an 8000 year period, contributed to a rise in sea level of many meters (I will provide references). Large amounts of fresh water added to various parts of the ocean could also have had a damaging effect to saltwater adapted life forms. Whether the cold water from glaciers would effect currents and so forth, as some have suggested, requires better studies.

As Andre has pointed out, the amount of climate change taking place around the same time as the Ice Age Floods may prove to be the more fascinating study that would help to disclose why the climate was changing in the first place. This sort of knowledge could also apply to an understanding of why today's rather erratic weather and climate statistics are taking place.

 

[nannoh]

Reference for the above posting:

Its from an article in Geology Today, pp 197, Nov.- Dec. 1998, titled "Flashfloods, earthquakes and uplift in the Pakistan Himalayas" by Butler, Owen and Prior.

There is a small consensus among geologists that holds to the idea that there was a global superflood around 11,600 years ago. These people are not born again baptists or maintaining any religious significance about the flood (actually, three global superfloods). It is thought that the flood covered land masses as far apart as the eastern Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean.

One of the pioneers of Isotopic analysis of deep-sea sediments as a way to study the Earth's past climates, Cesare Emiliani, Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Miami, produced interesting evidence of cataclysmic global flooding "between 12,000 and 11,000 years ago".

Robert Schoch, Professor in the Department of Geology at Boston University, observes that there was also a dramatic warming of the Earth's climate in the same period - the Preboreal - and that overall there is a

stunning line up in time between the sudden warming of 9645 bc, Emiliani's scenario of a massive freashwater flood pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, and (the written accounts found in Plato's "Timaeus and Critias of floods swallowing up a civilization).

A majority of Geologists saw the rise in sea level during the Preboreal as slow and nothing more than a meter per year or so. But since Emiliani's findings first began to undermine that view in the 1970s there are more and more studies that show how very cataclysmic the meltdown of the Ice Age could in fact have been.

I will try to go back to a more indepth study of India and the evidence there of massive flooding that stemmed from melting of the Himalayan glaciation during the LGM. It is particularly pertinent to this topic since its effects have been well recorded in various formats by many generations of Indian people, from the spoken word of the Rig Veda to written Sanskrit. And there has been a lot of research done in the area as well, showing dramatic changes that took place on the coasts of India and in the interior around 10,000 years ago, due to flooding.

 

[Andre]

Perhaps have a look at this thread, Nannoh

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=125669

 

[Pythagorean]

You bet

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v426/n6963/abs/nature02098.html

that's cool!

I want PICTURES! How did they compare to normal horses? Where they bigger and harrier?

 

[Andre]

http://www.beringia.com/02/02maina14.html may help, it was definitey much smaller.

Paleontology can be cool indeed, check the mastodom thread.

 

[nannoh]

Perhaps have a look at this thread, Nannoh

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=125669

Can isotope levels taken from ocean bottom sediments also show increased fresh water inundation besides the aledged temp. changes that isotopes are proported to measure?

 

[Mk]

that's cool!

I want PICTURES! How did they compare to normal horses? Where they bigger and harrier?

I don't think anyone was around to take any pictures.

 

[nannoh]

Jökulhlaups (jökull = glacier, hlaup = floodburst)

Floods brought on by glaciation are not uncommon. Imagine the force and magnatude of the floods from the LGM.

In this article the effects of "Jökulhlaups" on land forms is discussed as well as the effects of large amounts of fresh water on sea life. The impact of a flash flood from a glacier traveling at 60 to 80 miles an hour is also something to calculate when considering the survival or lack of it in land-based flora and fauna.

Jökulhlaups (jökull = glacier, hlaup = floodburst) happen inevitably when a glacier becomes a dam. At Vatnajökull, the ice cap dammed meltwater inside itself. Elsewhere a glacier might surge into a narrow river valley, like a landslide across a highway, and the resulting dam collects itself a lake. But ice has no strength, and the lake quickly destroys the dam when it can overtop it. Another thing about a dam made of ice is that ice is lighter and colder than water. Water both melts and floats an ice dam, and once the water first trickles underneath it the dam, no matter how large, swiftly fails. Hence the weird word for this special event.

They happen elsewhere than Iceland. In May 1986, Alaska's Hubbard Glacier had a vigorous surge that took its snout well past its usual endpoint. At a clip of dozens of meters per day, Hubbard moved into the shallows of Disenchantment Bay and formed a dam across Russell Fiord at its entrance. In that instant Russell Fiord became Russell Lake, which began to rise. The rising lake threatened to overflow elsewhere, into an ancient spillway that had been active in similar previous situations. The brackish water would flood the Situk River and ruin its world-class fishing—and the economy of Yakutat, the nearest town.

But on 7 October, a jökulhlaup saved the day. At one point it carried several cubic kilometers of water per minute into the Gulf of Alaska, along with much of Hubbard's snout. The U.S. Geological Survey said "the peak flow rate may have been the greatest water discharge to occur in North America and the largest glacier outburst in the world during the past few centuries" (it happened again in 2002). Yakutatans, at home in this dramatic setting for untold centuries, took it in stride too.

But we know of some jökulhlaups that make those of 1986 and 1996 pipsqueaks. Late in the last glacial period, about 13,000 years ago, part of the Cordilleran icesheet stoppered up...

http://geology.about.com/od/flooding/a/aa_041397jokul.htm

 

[Pythagorean]

I don't think anyone was around to take any pictures.

sketches, based on skeletons, derived by people who have a good idea of muscle and tissue structure based on skeletal structure is good enough, and also is what Andre provided above. They look like mutant horse-ponies!

 

[nannoh]

Can isotope levels taken from ocean bottom sediments also show increased fresh water inundation besides the aledged temp. changes that isotopes are proported to measure?

I'm not sure if this answers my question.

Stable isotopes
Deuterium (d 2H) and Oxygen-18 (d 18O)

Deuterium and oxygen-18 compositions of water samples provide a useful tool for investigating hydrological processes in surface and groundwater systems. In groundwater, the 2H and 18O signature gives an indication of the climatic conditions under which recharge took place. In surface water/catchment studies, stable isotopes have been used to estimate retention times and the hydrologic response of catchments to rainfall.

The Service also supports research work in which stable isotopes are used to identify the different sources of water taken up by plants. In addition it is involved in the use of single (deuterated) and double (18O and deuterated) labelled water in estimation of energy metabolism and fat-free mass in humans, mammals and reptiles.

http://www.clw.csiro.au/services/isotope/index.html#stable

I am asking about this because I want to find out if its possible to use the composition of sediments to determine periods of low salinity that could only be caused by an inundation of freshwater into a coastal, marine environment.

 

[Mk]

I want to know now too.

 

[nannoh]

I want to know now too.

You could find out if your lizard is gaining weight with isotopic analysis.

 

[Andre]

Okay then, fasten seatbelts, here we go.

The oxygen isotope ratio (d18O) from ocean sediment cores are measured from the calcium carbonate of the shells from certain foraminifera species, planktonic or benthic (bottom). The oxygen comes from variations of the reactions

(1) CO2 + H2O -> CO3(2-) + 2H+,
(2) CO3(2-) + Ca (2+) -> CaCO3.

Both as ions in the sea water. Some CO2 comes from the atmosphere, some comes from biotic marine cycles. I think that the latter is assumed to prevail, since the amount of CO2 in the oceans is some 60-70 times more than the amount in the atmosphere.

Now the ratio if 18O atoms depends on the ratio of the source and the fractination processes as well as conditions like temperature salinity, acidity. Moreover each species has it's own fractination constant.

The prevailing paradigm is that in the deepsea, conditions are pretty constant including the temperatures. Hence the concentration of 18O in the water, before it's fixed in calcium carbonate shells is thought to be the main cause of variation.

And the main cause of variation in d18O of the seawater is thought to be governed by the amount of water that is retained in the water cycle, the evaporation favors light 16O isotopes. Hence, the more ice sheets depleted with 18O, the less water in the ocean, the stronger the 18O signal.

There is a big problem with that idea though. The inertia of the oceans. If fresh meltwater enters the oceans, it would take centuries to millenia before the water was well mixed and the signal turning up in the benthic foraminifera proxies.

But there is no inertia delay, when comparing ice cores with benthic cores, moreover the amount of ice needed to balance the numbers is far greater than was really present during the last glacial maximum, which suggest that this "basin effect" is only minor. So what's really showing in the ocean cores appears to be mainly something else, sudden changes in parameters other than source ratio of d18O

But the math here is having one expression with three unknowns so we really need two more mathematical expressions with those unknows to figure out those parameters. Anything else is guesswork.

 

[nannoh]

Okay then, fasten seatbelts, here we go.

The oxygen isotope ratio (d18O) from ocean sediment cores are measured from the calcium carbonate of the shells from certain foraminifera species, planktonic or benthic (bottom). The oxygen comes from variations of the reactions

(1) CO2 + H2O -> CO3(2-) + 2H+,
(2) CO3(2-) + Ca (2+) -> CaCO3.

Both as ions in the sea water. Some CO2 comes from the atmosphere, some comes from biotic marine cycles. I think that the latter is assumed to prevail, since the amount of CO2 in the oceans is some 60-70 times more than the amount in the atmosphere.

Now the ratio if 18O atoms depends on the ratio of the source and the fractination processes as well as conditions like temperature salinity, acidity. Moreover each species has it's own fractination constant.

The prevailing paradigm is that in the deepsea, conditions are pretty constant including the temperatures. Hence the concentration of 18O in the water, before it's fixed in calcium carbonate shells is thought to be the main cause of variation.

And the main cause of variation in d18O of the seawater is thought to be governed by the amount of water that is retained in the water cycle, the evaporation favors light 16O isotopes. Hence, the more ice sheets depleted with 18O, the less water in the ocean, the stronger the 18O signal.

There is a big problem with that idea though. The inertia of the oceans. If fresh meltwater enters the oceans, it would take centuries to millenia before the water was well mixed and the signal turning up in the benthic foraminifera proxies.

But there is no inertia delay, when comparing ice cores with benthic cores, moreover the amount of ice needed to balance the numbers is far greater than was really present during the last glacial maximum, which suggest that this "basin effect" is only minor. So what's really showing in the ocean cores appears to be mainly something else, sudden changes in parameters other than source ratio of d18O

But the math here is having one expression with three unknowns so we really need two more mathematical expressions with those unknows to figure out those parameters. Anything else is guesswork.

This all makes perfect sense Andre.

Do we need the exoskeletons, calcium carbonate shells and other remains to read the the saline or fresh water content levels at given intervals over time in a basin or coastal area?

Is there a way to use the sedimentary layers in those areas that will show whether or not there has been an influx of freshwater from further inland or from some other source?

For instance, runoff always carries with it the pollen and other tell tale evidence from the area it is coming from. A sedimentary layer with a high content of inland pollens or soils would be evidence that it was laid down during a period disturbance from high run off. This would have to be compared with existing delta areas. Most rivers are remnants of massive meltwater from glacial runoff and I would think that the submarine sedimentary layering at the mouths of those rivers would provide an example of what the sedimentation of freshwater incursion would look like without relying on the fingerprint of the biological and chemical cycles of foraminifera species, planktonic or benthic.

 

[Mk]

Andre, I've heard you say "fractionation processes" a dozen times regarding this topic— what does it mean? Concentration? I did not get how we can tell prehistoric salinity based on d18O.

 

[Andre]

fractionation: To separate (a chemical compound) into components, as by distillation or crystallization.

Think of brewing liquors, distilling alcohol is also fractination. This is based on the physical properties of the heavier molecules with heavier isotopes. Those are the fat boys in class, always the last to get somewhere. So whenever a gas or fluid is going through a physical proces (evaporation, condensation, diffusion, osmosis, etc) some distillation is taken place, the lighter isotopes are quicker to get into a higher energy state or pass easier thorugh a membrane. Also chemical processes can cause fractination as the molecule bonds of heavy isotopes are slightly stronger and react differently.

This process is also temperature dependent, if the individual speed of the molecules increase the difference in individual energy state decreases and so does the fractination.

How temperature, acidity and salinity affect the d18O in the foraminifera shells depends on how those have affected the health of the organism. Obviously, there is an optimum at which it thrives and in good condition there will be little fractination. If conditions are worsening you would expect an enrichment in heavy isotopes since when the organism weakens, it can only capture the slow fat boys. But obviously, if that enrichment is taken place, you cannot tell, which condition is causing that.

I know this has been validated in labratory tests but I can't find a paper about that at the moment.

Another possibility of measuring salinity is directly by measuring pore water but then again, what would be causing its variation?

 

[nannoh]

Glacial Lake Discharge and Abrupt Climate Change II Posters

I'm looking for papers that explain or use the sedimentary record to determine salinity and/or freshwater levels from periods around the LGM. However, in the following paper, there appears to be a wide range of determiners one can use in crossreference as evidence of Ice Age Flooding in various environments.

Glacial Lake Discharge and Abrupt Climate Change II Posters

A Digital 3D-Reconstruction of the Younger Dryas Baltic Ice Lake

* Jakobsson, M (martin.jakobsson@geo.su.se) , Dept. of Geology and Geochemistry, Stockholm University, Svante Arrhenius vag 8c, Stockholm, 106 91 Sweden
Alm, G (alm@natgeo.su.se) , Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Svante Arrhenius vag 8c, Stockholm, 106 91 Sweden
Bjorck, S (svante.bjorck@geol.lu.se) , Dept. of Geology and Quaternary Sciences, Lund University, Sölvegatan 12, Lund, 22362 Lund Sweden
Lindeberg, G (greger.lindeberg@sgu.se) , Swedish Geological Survey, Uppsala, Uppsala, 751 28 Sweden
Svensson, N , Riksantikvarieambetet UV Syd, Akergrand 8, Lund, 226 60 Sweden

A digital 3D-reconstruction of the final stage of the ice dammed Baltic Ice Lake (BIL), dated to the very end of the Younger Dryas cold period (ca. 11 600 cal. yr BP) has been compiled using a combined bathymetric-topographic Digital Terrain Model (DTM), Scandinavian ice sheet limits, Baltic Sea Holocene bottom sediment thickness information, and a paleoshoreline database maintained at the Lund University. The combined bathymetric-topographic Digital Terrain Model (DTM) model used to reconstruct the ice dammed lake was compiled specifically for this study from publicly available data sets. The final DTM is in the form of a digital grid on Lamberts Equal Area projection with a resolution of 500 x 500 m, which permits a much more detailed reconstruction of the BIL than previously made. The lake was constructed through a series of experiments where mathematical algorithms were applied to fit the paleolake's surface through the shoreline database. The accumulated Holocene bottom sediments in the Baltic Sea were subsequently subtracted from the present bathymetry in our reconstruction. This allows us to estimate the Baltic Ice Lake's paleobathymetry, area, volume, and hypsometry, which will comprise key input data to lake/climate modeling exercises following this study. The Scandinavian ice sheet margin eventually retreated north of Mount Billingen, which was the high point in terrain of Southern central Sweden bordering to lower terrain further to the North. As a consequence, the BIL was catastrophically drained through this area, resulting in a 25 m drop of the lake level. With our digital BIL model we estimate that approximately 7, 800 km3 of water drained during this event and that the ice dammed lake area was reduced with ca 18 percent. The digital BIL reconstruction is analyzed using 3D-visualization techniques that provide new detailed information on the paleogeography in the area, both before and after the lake drainage, with implications for interpretations of geological records concerning the post-glacial environmental development of southern Scandinavia.

Much more on this at this site.

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/fm05-sessions/fm05_PP13A.html

Of particular interest to the Isotope question

Meltwater Events in the Eastern Arctic Ocean: Relations to Eurasian Ice-dammed Lakes and Climate Forcings

* Spielhagen, R F (rspielhagen@ifm-geomar.de) , Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and Literature Mainz, c/o Leibniz-Institute for Marine Sciences IFM-GEOMAR Wischhofstr. 1-3, Kiel, 24147 Germany

Analysis of foraminiferal oxygen and carbon isotope records from long sediment cores from the eastern and central Arctic Ocean reveals a number of peaks which are interpreted as evidence for strong meltwater events. Most of these events were accompanied by strong deposition of coarse ice-rafted terrestrial debris indicative of large amounts of icebergs in the area. Hgh-resolution stratigraphic models for the cores, based on a variety of independant methods, allow to identify the the ages of meltwater events within the last 200 ky. They cluster in the intervals 160-155, 140-125, 90-75, 65-60, and 55-50 ka. According to recent results from the QUEEN program (Quaternary Science Reviews, v. 23 (11-13), 2004), these times fall into intervals of extended glaciations in northern Eurasia. The ice sheets dammed large rivers in European Russia and western Siberia and led to the formation of large lakes. The "marine" ages of meltwater events in the Arctic Ocean, as determined from sediment core data, correlate well with terrestrial age estimates for the deglacial events in northern Eurasia which must have included the discharge of the meltwater lakes into the Arctic Ocean. According to amplitudes in the foraminiferal isotopic records, the strongest events occurred at the glacial terminations of marine isotope stages 6 (130 ka) and 3/4 (52 ka). In my presentation, I will give an overview of existing stratigraphic and isotopic data sets of meltwater events in the eastern and central Arctic Ocean, including their limitations. Furthermore, I will analyze possible connections of meltwater events in the Arctic to similar events in the Norwegian-Greenland Sea and to external forcings. Finally, possible evidence for a strong freshwater export from the Arctic Ocean as a trigger of the cold Younger Dryas event will be reviewed.

On the same site.

There is some validation of the idea of using pollen and stratification to study various paleoclimate changes in an abstract titled

Pollen and stratigraphic evidence for abrupt climate changes in the Northeastern United States: Lake Champlain

on the same site.

I am very sorry but this abstract explains the use of tree rings as evidence to use in dating climate change from wood found in a peat bog in Indiana and I thought I might bring it to your attention here as well.

Tree-Ring Investigation of an in situ Younger Dryas-Age Spruce Forest in the Great Lakes Region of N. America

* Panyushkina, I P (panush@ltrr.arizona.edu) , Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 United States
Leavitt, S W (sleavitt@u.arizona.edu) , Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 United States
Lange, T , NSF AMS Facility, Dept. of Physics University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 United States
Schneider, A F , Department of Geology, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Kenosha, WI 53141-2000 United States

A late Pleistocene-early Holocene geological site known as Liverpool East on the southern end of Lake Michigan (in Indiana) was discovered in the early 1980s. Five previously reported radiocarbon dates on wood and peat from the deposit ranged from 9,080 to 11,290 14C yr B.P., but our subsequent radiocarbon dating of wood from in situ spruce stumps at the site has yielded four ages from 10,060 to 10,444 14C yr B.P., which correspond to calibrated calendar ages between about 11,550 and 12,500 Cal yr B.P. These dates place this forest squarely into the Younger Dryas event, and offer an unusual opportunity for exploring high-resolution environmental variability during an abrupt climate change event related to ocean thermohaline circulation...

More at the bottom of the linked site above.

 

[Andre]

Thanks, now we're getting somewhere. About the Baltic being 'ice dammed', okay but at what time frame, the Younger Dryas (12800-1160BP)? I think not, it's about over for the idea of the Younger Dryas being extremely cold with widescale glacier advance, because it aint so.

In the middle of the Baltic is Lake Madtjärn, Sweden.

So let's investigate a pollen core and see how that temperature drop of the Younger Dryas compares. Let's look at figure 3 of

Björck, S (1996) Synchronized Terrestrial Atmospheric Deglacial Records Around the North Atlantic Science, Vol 274, Issue 5290, 1155-1160 , 15 November 1996

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/274/5290/1155/F3

When you have a subscribtion this will work. Used to be free.

See that the carbon dating scale is within the error limits of the YD of the GISP core. Note that the most notable change in pollen between the YD and the BP is the disappearance of Artemisia from the YD into the BP, while Empertrum appeared all of a sudden. So what does that tell us about habitat and climate change?

The "cold" Younger Dryas:

Artemisia is a large, diverse genus of plants with about 180 species belonging to the sunflower family (Asteraceae). It comprises hardy herbs and sub-shrubs known for their volatile oils. They grow in temperate climates of the Northern Hemisphere, usually in dry or semi-dry habitats. The fern-like leaves of many species are covered with white hairs.

The "warm" PreBoreal (Holocene):

Empetrum (Crowberry) Habitat:

Acid peatlands, cold coniferous forest, and acidic rocky slopes; widespread across northern boreal forest, north through arctic islands, circumpolar

The conclusion from this should be:

The middle of Sweden was already well ice free since trees were restablished in the area even before the Younger Dryas. The Younger Dryas saw a marked decline of forests favouring more arid fauna, whereas the moist conditions returned after the Younger Dryas. And now those guys want to build a ice dam somewhere at the outlet of the Baltic a few hundred kilometers west of forested area of Lake Madtjärn

 

[nannoh]

Thanks, now we're getting somewhere. About the Baltic being 'ice dammed', okay but at what time frame, the Younger Dryas (12800-1160BP)? I think not, it's about over for the idea of the Younger Dryas being extremely cold with widescale glacier advance, because it aint so.

In the middle of the Baltic is Lake Madtjärn, Sweden.

So let's investigate a pollen core and see how that temperature drop of the Younger Dryas compares. Let's look at figure 3 of

Björck, S (1996) Synchronized Terrestrial Atmospheric Deglacial Records Around the North Atlantic Science, Vol 274, Issue 5290, 1155-1160 , 15 November 1996

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/274/5290/1155/F3

When you have a subscribtion this will work. Used to be free.

See that the carbon dating scale is within the error limits of the YD of the GISP core. Note that the most notable change in pollen between the YD and the BP is the disappearance of Artemisia from the YD into the BP, while Empertrum appeared all of a sudden. So what does that tell us about habitat and climate change?

The "cold" Younger Dryas:

Artemisia is a large, diverse genus of plants with about 180 species belonging to the sunflower family (Asteraceae). It comprises hardy herbs and sub-shrubs known for their volatile oils. They grow in temperate climates of the Northern Hemisphere, usually in dry or semi-dry habitats. The fern-like leaves of many species are covered with white hairs.

The "warm" PreBoreal (Holocene):

Empetrum (Crowberry) Habitat:

Acid peatlands, cold coniferous forest, and acidic rocky slopes; widespread across northern boreal forest, north through arctic islands, circumpolar

The conclusion from this should be:

The middle of Sweden was already well ice free since trees were restablished in the area even before the Younger Dryas. The Younger Dryas saw a marked decline of forests favouring more arid fauna, whereas the moist conditions returned after the Younger Dryas. And now those guys want to build a ice dam somewhere at the outlet of the Baltic a few hundred kilometers west of forested area of Lake Madtjärn

Who are these guys and why would they want to mislead people about this or why can't they see things the way you do? Or are they just really bad scientists? What is it that they can see that we are not, or visa versa, according to your interpretation?

 

[Andre]

Who are these guys and why would they want to mislead people about this or why can't they see things the way you do? Or are they just really bad scientists? What is it that they can see that we are not, or visa versa, according to your interpretation?

No, those people are okay, but that's what they are, people, subject to human conduct with all its biases. Thomas Kuhn gives a very accurate analysis of this process in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", outline http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html

The history of the ice age is a lot more complicated as I have showed here in numerous threads. Just try this alphabetic query.

The development of the current paradigm is painstakingly covered by Spencer Weart in the http://www.aip.org/history/climate/. It may take a day or two to explore that mega site. But it merely illustrates how people found what they were looking for, global warming, while carefully avoiding to look at all the evidence combined, like Mammoths for instance. This is paradigm-based research (Kuhn chapter III-B-4-C)

But the main culprit was perhaps the problems with carbon dating. In the early days, before 1980 it was assumed that the delta14C in the air had been constant throughout the ages while it wasn't. In the nineteen-eighties it was noted that there was a large age difference between counted annual layers in certain proxies (tree rings, lake sediment layering) and its corresponding carbon date. It took to about 1993 before the calibration of carbon dating started to be a bit reliable and it was noted that at the end of the ice age the difference in dating was several thousand years, but also that carbon platforms preclude accurate dating. For instance a Carbon date of 10050 +/- 100 years can be anything between 11200 and 11700 calendar years. 12000 carbon years is about 14600 calendar years. So the error is large enough to misplace different era's when not corrected. And that's exactly what happened in the early carbon dating days, which aided tremendously to the wrong notion about the Young Dryas from 12800 Years to 11670 years ago which is 10700 - 10080 in Carbon years.

So if anybody finds out this real mega problem like http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/inqu/finalprogram/abstract_55882.htm, it is carefully ignored, or a haphazard ad hoc hypothesis is invented to explain the problems, instead of wondering why and investigating, exactly as predicted by Kuhn.

Since I have nothing with global warming ideas, I'm not forced into the paradigm biased research and I'm free to wonder about why the Mammoths died out, that's the difference.

 

[nannoh]

No, those people are okay, but that's what they are, people, subject to human conduct with all its biases. Thomas Kuhn gives a very accurate analysis of this process in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", outline http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html

The history of the ice age is a lot more complicated as I have showed here in numerous threads. Just try this alphabetic query.

The development of the current paradigm is painstakingly covered by Spencer Weart in the http://www.aip.org/history/climate/. It may take a day or two to explore that mega site. But it merely illustrates how people found what they were looking for, global warming, while carefully avoiding to look at all the evidence combined, like Mammoths for instance. This is paradigm-based research (Kuhn chapter III-B-4-C)

But the main culprit was perhaps the problems with carbon dating. In the early days, before 1980 it was assumed that the delta14C in the air had been constant throughout the ages while it wasn't. In the nineteen-eighties it was noted that there was a large age difference between counted annual layers in certain proxies (tree rings, lake sediment layering) and its corresponding carbon date. It took to about 1993 before the calibration of carbon dating started to be a bit reliable and it was noted that at the end of the ice age the difference in dating was several thousand years, but also that carbon platforms preclude accurate dating. For instance a Carbon date of 10050 +/- 100 years can be anything between 11200 and 11700 calendar years. 12000 carbon years is about 14600 calendar years. So the error is large enough to misplace different era's when not corrected. And that's exactly what happened in the early carbon dating days, which aided tremendously to the wrong notion about the Young Dryas from 12800 Years to 11670 years ago which is 10700 - 10080 in Carbon years.

So if anybody finds out this real mega problem like http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/inqu/finalprogram/abstract_55882.htm, it is carefully ignored, or a haphazard ad hoc hypothesis is invented to explain the problems, instead of wondering why and investigating, exactly as predicted by Kuhn.

Since I have nothing with global warming ideas, I'm not forced into the paradigm biased research and I'm free to wonder about why the Mammoths died out, that's the difference.

I do know that, when it first began to be used, carbon 14 dating was thought to have only a 500 year degree of variance. These later developments you've pointed out show a much larger discrepancy in the dates obtained by RC14 dating.

Weren't the tree rings used more to show climactic variations over time? Of course, one would want to use the c14 dating from the same trees to determine the era. I would think using strata information plus the less accurate rc14 dating would arrive at an approximate date for a study. I would also like to point out that the LGM and alleged resulting floods, rise in sea level and climactic changes is said to have lasted around 7000 years (with a younger dryas interlude) so I would imagine there is some wiggle room for error in dating the many changes that took place between 14,000 you and around 7000 ya.

What percentage of damage could these possible Ice Age Floods have had on the mammoth, mastadon and other megafauna populations in your opinion? It appears that both North America and Eurasia could well have seen some gargantuan and devastating, freshwater land tsunamis that came at regular intervals during a long period of time (perhaps repeatedly over 7000 years)?

 

[Andre]

Weren't the tree rings used more to show climactic variations over time?

That's dendrology, with it own set of major problems. Counting rings and fitting in sequences of rings of different trees in the time is dendrochronology.

I would also like to point out that the LGM and alleged resulting floods, rise in sea level and climactic changes is said to have lasted around 7000 years (with a younger dryas interlude)

This is basically paradigm based science. Check my threads where I demonstrate a multitude of problems with that, when combining several studies.

so I would imagine there is some wiggle room for error in dating the many changes that took place between 14,000 you and around 7000 ya.

And that was all changed when the Greenland ice cores allowed for annual counting and revealed sharp near instantaneous climate changes like http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/GISP3.GIF . Strong synchronous spikes of isotopes, snow accumulation rate and CH4. This is what started the global warming hype when seen for the first time in the 1980ies.

But when we compare thing with a few hundred detailed geologic studies then a completely different picture emerges.

Take for instance the http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/meerfelder.GIF , a very revealing unique high resolution coverage of the Younger Dryas.

Notice the taxa http://www.npr.org/programs/talkingplants/profiles/helianthemum.html with a current main biotope along the Mediterarian -relatively rare in Northern Germany- being it's northernmost area. This is making sure that the Younger Dryas summer was on average not really colder than today. The general trend of pollen appears to indicate much more difference from moist moderate rain forests (Bolling Allerod and Preboreal) to arid steppe (Younger Dryas) than warm - cold. This also reflects exactly the accumulation rates at the Greenland ice cores.

What percentage of damage could these possible Ice Age Floods have had on the mammoth, mastadon and other megafauna populations in your opinion? It appears that both North America and Eurasia could well have seen some gargantuan and devastating, freshwater land tsunamis that came at regular intervals during a long period of time (perhaps repeatedly over 7000 years)?

Not really, the flooding was very limited. Of course there was Lake Missoula and Lake Agassiz flooding in America and some flooding in the northern Himalayes but other than that, no traces in Europe or Siberia. However the pollen diagram of the Meerfelder maar shows how quickly biotopes changed utterly and completely. Many species could not cope with that. The woolly rhino and he American Camels and horses died out at the onset of the very wet Allerod event around 14600 Calendar years ago and the area of the woolly mammoth got reduced to around Michican in America and Taimyr in Siberia. During the dry Younger Dryas the mammoth trived again in the megafauna steppes but the onset of the Preboreal around 11670 years ago brought the heavy rains that destroyed the steppe to make place for marshes and swamps.

Several species survived the severe climate changes like the Irish Elk and (I'm rather sure about that) the American mastodon, to get extinct only a few thousend years ago for some, yet unknown, reason.

 

[nannoh]

Not really, the flooding was very limited. Of course there was Lake Missoula and Lake Agassiz flooding in America and some flooding in the northern Himalayes but other than that, no traces in Europe or Siberia.

Thank you for all your effort to bring us that information. And for your earlier and current threads Andre. These data are all extremely important and interesting.

I have singled out this one statement of yours because I'd like to know where the studies are that show there has been no flooding in Europe or Siberia. Are they published on the net? Are they published at all? Have you done your own field work or is there any field work that has researched the surface geology in Europe and Siberia looking for signs of catastrophic flooding like the kind that has appeared to have happened in North America and the Himilayas?

 

[Evo]

I have singled out this one statement of yours because I'd like to know where the studies are that show there has been no flooding in Europe or Siberia.

nannoh, you're not going to find studies of something that doesn't exist. The lack of evidence of flooding would be your answer.

See this link if you want to know what the indicators of ice age glacial flooding are and why it's obvious if it happened or not, it wouldn't be a hidden mystery.

http://www.igsb.uiowa.edu/browse/glacflds/glacflds.htm

This thread is going nowhere.

 

[Andre]

I have singled out this one statement of yours because I'd like to know where the studies are that show there has been no flooding in Europe or Siberia. Are they published on the net? Are they published at all?

Let's say that there are hundreds of geologic studies which do or do not show flooding that could or clould not have been caused by poor drainage and combinations of glacial melt and/or excessive rain.

Try http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=QuickSearchListURL&_method=list&_aset=V-WA-A-W-YZ-MsSAYVA-UUW-U-AACYBVCYBY-AACCEWZZBY-ZDEEWAVD-YZ-U&_sort=d&view=c&_st=13&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_userid=10&md5=c1d05832d9eca7fb325403a404126224 for instance.

However when you focus in on time and area, it's very hard to tie such floodings directly to extinctions. For instance, the extinctions were selective and several species survived with flying colors. This would tend to contradict all-out disasters like flooding (or, for that matter, human overhunt). But then again, what if the last herd of species is washed away by a Lake Missoula / Agassiz type surge, has it caused that extinction.

I think that the cause of an extinction should be defined something as a single element that played the essential role in the extinction. Without that factor, extinction would most likely not have occured. Then neither flooding nor overhunt is THE cause of the extinctions, My vote goes to the sudden and extreme moist - arid - moist climate oscillations, changing habitats too quickly for species to cope.

Have you done your own field work

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/fishingformammoths.jpg .

Anyway, whilst fieldwork is great for getting the feeling it is stimulating specialisation and hence it kills generalism. The art is combining all evidence in each speciality to build the complete picture. Nobody is doing that at this moment, for one single reason. The evidence does not add up to support the current paradigms and it's getting worse by the day.

or is there any field work that has researched the surface geology in Europe and Siberia looking for signs of catastrophic flooding like the kind that has appeared to have happened in North America and the Himilayas?

Look at that former query. There are many proxies of several kinds that support or refute floodings. The pollen core of the Meerfelder maar for instance shows a continuous record across the Younger Dryas and beyond, suggesting that there has not been a flood over there in that period.

 

[nannoh]

Let's say that there are hundreds of geologic studies which do or do not show flooding that could or clould not have been caused by poor drainage and combinations of glacial melt and/or excessive rain.

Try http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=QuickSearchListURL&_method=list&_aset=V-WA-A-W-YZ-MsSAYVA-UUW-U-AACYBVCYBY-AACCEWZZBY-ZDEEWAVD-YZ-U&_sort=d&view=c&_st=13&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_userid=10&md5=c1d05832d9eca7fb325403a404126224 for instance.

However when you focus in on time and area, it's very hard to tie such floodings directly to extinctions. For instance, the extinctions were selective and several species survived with flying colors. This would tend to contradict all-out disasters like flooding (or, for that matter, human overhunt). But then again, what if the last herd of species is washed away by a Lake Missoula / Agassiz type surge, has it caused that extinction.

I think that the cause of an extinction should be defined something as a single element that played the essential role in the extinction. Without that factor, extinction would most likely not have occured. Then neither flooding nor overhunt is THE cause of the extinctions, My vote goes to the sudden and extreme moist - arid - moist climate oscillations, changing habitats too quickly for species to cope.



http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/fishingformammoths.jpg .

Anyway, whilst fieldwork is great for getting the feeling it is stimulating specialisation and hence it kills generalism. The art is combining all evidence in each speciality to build the complete picture. Nobody is doing that at this moment, for one single reason. The evidence does not add up to support the current paradigms and it's getting worse by the day.



Look at that former query. There are many proxies of several kinds that support or refute floodings. The pollen core of the Meerfelder maar for instance shows a continuous record across the Younger Dryas and beyond, suggesting that there has not been a flood over there in that period.

Thank you Andre.

I think a good idea would be to go to an area with as many "general" inquiries in mind as possible while bringing "specific" studies and techniques that pertain to as many of those general or "overall" inquiries.

For example: from valley to valley and from plain to plain taking as many chronological readings from strata and from other evidence as possible while combining these results with intense studies that look for evidence of flooding, climactic change, die-offs and disturbances. Combining all of these evidences gathered by one focus group may better show in what period various occurances took place and to what degree their effects changed the living conditions for all the flora and fauna.

When studies are performed by separate groups there is a lack of coherence between methods and the focus of one is often very much out of focus for the next group of researchers. Although it is good to spread out the research in terms of elimanating bias, often the focus of one does not match the criteria of what the next is trying to determine. Thus, the results are disjointed and inconclusive, invariably. I'm very glad to see that you are taking interest in both general and specific approaches. Thank you again.

 

[Mickey]

I just today saw a History Channel documentary about the underwater Japanese pyramid. It briefly visited the notion that there are "flood myths" universally distributed across world cultures. There are over 300 such stories of civilizations being destroyed by floods, according to one person interviewed. Ice Age glaciers, which had been stable for 100,000 years, started to melt around 17,000 BC, so this could have wiped out some tropical civilizations.

As it happens, the Japanese pyramid would have been right on the tropic of cancer in this time period, taking into account the tectonic shifts since then. Researchers have determined that the Japanese pyramid would have been above water until 10,000 BC, but don't have absolute proof that it was constructed by humans. Some researchers say it just hasn't been investigated enough. The film crew of the documentary actually discovered new formations while they were swimming around, saying that it was perhaps the most interesting filming they've ever done.

Here are some pictures from an earlier expedition.
http://www.lauralee.com/japan/japan1.htm

 

[nannoh]

I just today saw a History Channel documentary about the underwater Japanese pyramid. It briefly visited the notion that there are "flood myths" universally distributed across world cultures. There are over 300 such stories of civilizations being destroyed by floods, according to one person interviewed. Ice Age glaciers, which had been stable for 100,000 years, started to melt around 17,000 BC, so this could have wiped out some tropical civilizations.

As it happens, the Japanese pyramid would have been right on the tropic of cancer in this time period, taking into account the tectonic shifts since then. Researchers have determined that the Japanese pyramid would have been above water until 10,000 BC, but don't have absolute proof that it was constructed by humans. Some researchers say it just hasn't been investigated enough. The film crew of the documentary actually discovered new formations while they were swimming around, saying that it was perhaps the most interesting filming they've ever done.

Here are some pictures from an earlier expedition.
http://www.lauralee.com/japan/japan1.htm

There are some other diving expeditions coming up with more evidence of submerged ruins from previously unknown forms of civiliization in India. India has a lot of evidence of Ice Age Floods that flowed out of the Himilayas and India's coastline has lost the equivalent of a small continent along her coast line over the last 15,000 years.

One such ruin is off India's east coast at Poompuhur. The ruins are a few miles off the coast and submerged in 23 meters of ocean. It is thought that at this depth, if these are ruins, they are very old in relation to remains at sea level and inland which date as far back as 4500 bc (eg. Indus Valley, Sumeria (Mesopotamia) .

Here is an account from a team of divers who surveyed the ruins.

The first divers down reported an angular structure draped in fishing nets and monofilament tendrils. For two weeks our divers crawled over this mysterious mound, measuring, photographing, filming and chipping. Although only at 23m, visibility was under 5m, a blizzard of careering suspended particles.

After three weeks and 100 dives of intense surveying by a team with a wealth of diving experience, the conclusion was that the structure had been shaped by man.
I even had one sheepish Indian archaeologist sidle up to me one evening to say that, in his opinion, the structure was definitely man-made, but that he needed that final definitive piece of proof before committing himself to the record. The mysterious structure wasn't a U-shape at all, more of a giant question mark.

If the date on this stucture is 9000bc, erosion and currents will have rendered it practially unrecognisable as a temple or site of habitation.

A second leg of this expedition explored shallower waters further along the coast and found large amounts of submerged, umistakable evidence of ruins that you can read about on the site where I got these quotes.

http://www.divernet.com/archaeol/0602india.htm

More news from India about a possibly 9000 year old submerged city reported by the BBC.

BBC NEWS, JANUARY 19, 2002: The remains of what has
been described as a huge lost city may force historians and
archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human
history. Marine scientists say archaeological remains discovered 36
metres (120 feet) underwater in the Gulf of Cambay off the western
coast of India could be over 9,000 years old. The vast city—which
is five miles long and two miles wide—is believed to predate the
oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years.
The site was discovered by chance last year by oceanographers from
India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology conducting a survey
of pollution. Using sidescan sonar—which sends a beam of sound
waves down to the bottom of the ocean—they identified huge
geometrical structures at a depth of 120ft. Debris recovered from
the site—including construction material, pottery, sections of walls,
beads, sculpture and human bones and teeth—has been carbon
dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old. The city is believed to
be even older than the ancient Harappan civilisation, which dates
back around 4,000 years. Marine archaeologists have used a
technique known as sub-bottom profiling to show that the buildings’
remains stand on enormous foundations.

http://www.squarecircles.com/articles/archeology/8-9.pdf#search=%229000%20year%20old%20underwater%20ruins%22

That is a PDF file but well worth the read.

All this sort of evidence, (the Japanese underwater anomaly, the Indian submerged ruins and other marine archaeological sites) help to point out is that there were sudden changes in sea level starting around 11,000 years ago. They appear to be sudden because these sites are completely submerged and there are so many stories explaining their submergence. And if you study the change in the coastlines around the world over t ime you can see three distinct periods where this has taken place. I don't have a link for you to view that right now but I can supply it later on.

I looked for a more recent update on the Gulf of Cambay story and here's what I found.

Pre-Harappan bricks found in Gulf of Cambay
[ 18 Jul, 2004 2209hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

VADODARA: In an underwater exploration in the Gulf of Cambay, National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) scientists discovered almost 9,500-year-old bricks made of clay and straw.

Archaeological experts of the MS University who, too, are involved in a part of the exploration near Surat and the coast of Gulf of Cambay, however, feel that a further insight into the size of the bricks can confirm its age and its period.

The bricks, believed to be pre-Harappan, have been identified to be of the Holocene age.

Apparently the Holocene age was the scene of some nasty flooding from glacial meltwater. This may or may not be related to the submergence of these pre-Harappan structures.

Thank you for your contribution.

 

[Evo]

During the ice age sea levels dropped creating new land mass, as the ice melted, sea levels rose, reclaiming the land.

Sea levels have gone up and down all through history. It's no surprise to find submerged cities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise

 

[nannoh]

During the ice age sea levels dropped creating new land mass, as the ice melted, sea levels rose, reclaiming the land.

Sea levels have gone up and down all through history. It's no surprise to find submerged cities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise

What's surprising is that there haven't been many serious, scientific underwater archaeological excavations and surveys undertaken until the beginning of this century (2000 ad).

The archaeological evidence, so far, simply helps to prove that these fluctuations of sea level took place and that they disrupted anthropologically initiated civic and agricultural activity.

On a personal level I would not only be surprised but amazed to find a

vast city—which
is five miles long and two miles wide—is believed to predate the
oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years.

under 120 feet of water.

 

[Evo]

What's surprising is that there haven't been many serious, scientific underwater archaeological excavations and surveys undertaken until the beginning of this century (2000 ad).

They didn't have the sophisticated equipment until now to find them, and they're being found by accident.

 

[nannoh]

They didn't have the sophisticated equipment until now to find them, and they're being found by accident.

That being the case, there must be a lot we don't know about out there. As new instrumentation and robotic surveyers (like the Mars Rover) are developed we should see a corresponding increase in newly discovered phenomena. This is the sort of thing I'd like to see used to determine how wide spread - as in how global - Ice Age Flooding was and whether or not it took place simultaneiously - in an incremental fashion - or sporadically over several milenia after the LGM.

 

[Andre]

About the sea level "yoyo" apparently in pace with the waxing and waning sheets of the ice ages. Note that the proxies measuring those are concentrated around the equator. Mk posted a recent research about that.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=128743

Other higher lattitude sites seem a lot less consistent, like http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1130%2F0091-7613(2002)030%3C0379:BIBTSW%3E2.0.CO%3B2.

Wuchang Wei 2002, Beijing inundated by the sea within the past 80 k.y.: Nannofossil evidence, Geology: Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 379–381.

ABSTRACT

Examination of published data reveals that a marine bed in Beijing can be dated as 80 ka or younger on the basis of abundant nannofossils. This age is 30 times younger than that published previously on the basis of magnetostratigraphic and biostratigraphic interpretations. The abundant nannofossils and foraminifers suggest that Beijing was inundated by the sea within the past 80 k.y. The very recent nature of this marine transgression has profound societal and geological implications and thus calls for new studies and thorough evaluation of all relevant data sets.

So if the eustatic (global) sa level was lower up to more than 120 meters in the last glacial era from 120Ka to 20-10ka then there is a serious problem here.

But the most intriguing problem is the drowned Cuban city here.

 

[nannoh]

About the sea level "yoyo" apparently in pace with the waxing and waning sheets of the ice ages. Note that the proxies measuring those are concentrated around the equator. Mk posted a recent research about that.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=128743

Other higher lattitude sites seem a lot less consistent, like http://www.gsajournals.org/gsaonline/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1130%2F0091-7613(2002)030%3C0379:BIBTSW%3E2.0.CO%3B2.
So if the eustatic (global) sa level was lower up to more than 120 meters in the last glacial era from 120Ka to 20-10ka then there is a serious problem here.

But the most intriguing problem is the drowned Cuban city here.

Thank you for the links Andre. There is apparently more to the rise of sea level than I thought. I don't see where or why an extra 700 ft would appear around Cuba. Unless there was some sort of over-hang the city was established upon that dropped to that depth.