Ice Age Floods cause mass extinctions?

[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.

 

[Mk]

Isostatic?

 

[nannoh]

Isostatic?

Isostatic lift takes place as the weight of glaciation is removed from a land mass, or a large portion of the crust as was the case with the Ice Age. Cuba somehow strikes me as a place where Isostatic lift would not have occurred to the same degree that it did in the northern portion of the Northern Hemisphere. The coastline along the NorthWest coast is 500 ft below where it was 11,000 years or so ago because of this phenomenon. I don't see this as a contributing factor in Cuba. Then again, I may be wrong.

Is there any data on the effects of isostatic lift in the equatorial regions and those regions around Cuba? The overall rise in sea level due to the incursion of Meltwater and other end of the Ice Age factors would have had an effect in Cuba but that is reported to be around 60 meters which is about 180 ft. These Cuban ruins are sitting at 720 ft under water.

 

[Andre]

Make that 720 meter or about 2200 feet.

 

[nannoh]

Make that 720 meter or about 2200 feet.

Thank you for the correction Andre. I didn't see a city in the photograph but there were some remains of columns. Its still an anomaly that requires an explanation regarding its depth and whether or not it was once above sea level while it was in situ.

 

[nannoh]

NOVA has a page called the "Mystery Of The Mega flood" referring to the Purcell Lobe of the Cordilleran ice sheet, Glacial Lake Missoula and the Glacial Lake Missoula's "ice dam" and subsequent flooding from these features. Most of the content of the article is from

David Alt, a geology professor emeritus at the University of Montana in Missoula, (who) is author of Glacial Lake Missoula and Its Humongous Floods (Mountain Press Publishing Co., 2001)(.T)his article was excerpted with kind permission of the author and the publisher. He has studied Glacial Lake Missoula and its floods since the 1960s.

There are illustrations that give you a better idea of the scale and mechanism of this sort of flood. Professor Alt suggests that we can learn from "these kinds of floods" and although he doesn't specify how in the article. I'm sure he explains this in his book.

One thing the article claims is that these floods happened every summer and that the sea level rose 100 feet every 1000 years as a result of the floods. I did not see the data nor the method of verifying this statement in the article.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/megaflood/lake.html

Also, after careful re-examination of the tragedy I reported concerning the deaths of 7000 members of the Sihk Army during a flash flood in India I managed to find out that the flood was caused by meltwater from a glacier in the Himilayas that had been backed up by a landslide in a remote valley of the region. So the flood was not released by a melting ice dam as I mistakenly assumed upon first hearing about the incident.

Megafloods: Visualizing Effects of Catastorphic Ice Age Floods in Washington State

These are 3D modeled visualizations of the effects of the "Mega Flood" with some interesting comentary.

http://nvizx.typepad.com/nvizx_weblog/2005/10/megafloods_visu.html

 

[nannoh]

Chinese Research Institute asks for preparedness
in defence against the event of glacial outbursts of meltwater.

A research team led by Prof .LI Xin from the Cold & Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute under CAS recently appealed to the authorities to set up an early warning system for the possible floods due to glacial lake outburst in China's alpine hinterland

http://www.ebast.net.cn/ebast/kxpj/72558.shtml

English version,

http://english.cas.ac.cn/eng2003/news/detailnewsb.asp?InfoNo=26065


Here's another example of modern day flood threats posed by glaciation. This one hasn't actually melted since it was first monitored in 2003. Perhaps Peru has been cooling off?

Peril in Peru? NASA Takes a Look at Menacing Glacier

April 15, 2003

An Earth-monitoring instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite is keeping a close eye on a potential glacial disaster-in-the-making in Peru's spectacular, snow-capped Cordillera Blanca (White Mountains), the highest range of the Peruvian Andes.

Data from NASA's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (Aster) is assisting Peruvian government officials and geologists in monitoring a glacier that feeds Lake Palcacocha, located high above the city of Huaraz, 270 kilometers (168 miles) north of Lima. An ominous crack has developed in the glacier. Should the large glacier chunk break off and fall into the lake, the ensuing flood could hurtle down the Cojup Valley into the Rio Santa Valley below, reaching Huaraz and its population of 60,000 in less than 15 minutes.

http://www.brightsurf.com/news/april_03/JPL_news_041503.html


I found the "Jökulhlaup Updates" which is the record of the glacial flood that took place in Iceland back in the 1990s.

The whole document reads about the damages and the causes of the flood.

Here
http://www.hi.is/~mmh/gos/vat-update.html

 

[nannoh]

Lack of Evidence for "World Wide Flood" and mass extinction

It is appearing more and more logical to assume that the amount of damage done by Ice Age Floods to various species around the globe could not have amounted to a mass extinction of any of the populations as was questioned in the heading of this thread.

A correspondent on a space exploration discussion group, as an example, writes as follows in this regard:

Many different cultures describe an “ark-like” event and a Noah-like man. There is also scientific evidence that indicates that many animals were killed and transported far from their natural habitats, as though by wild, rushing water.

I replied: I'd like to see this evidence, because it's precisely the lack of such evidence that leads science to conclude that there never was a worldwide all-embracing flood (local floods are allowed by the evidence, yes). In particular, studies of the multitudinous islands scattered round the oceans of the world show that their various organisms arrived accidentally (in very small numbers in the case of the most remote isles) by wing, by sea, or by floating objects upon it, and then evolved for millions of years (without being wiped out by floods) in total isolation, “radiating” into a spectrum of diverse living forms, filling available ecological niches that on continents would be occupied by more conventional organisms. A worldwide flood would have drowned the flora and fauna of these isolated islands, which manifestly has not occurred.

Moreover, the survival of radically different lineages of organisms (marsupials, giant birds, etc.) on remote continents such as Australia also demonstrates that no catastrophic flood followed by the dispersal of living forms from something like an “ark” ever took place.

Our correspondent then came back:

Woolly mammoths have been found almost perfectly preserved in arctic regions. They were so well preserved that their last meals had still not been digested.

Why is that significant?

1) They died so fast that they were not capable of digesting their last meal (your stomach usually continues to work if you are dying slowly of natural causes).

2) The contents of their stomachs were temperate climate vegetation — not arctic. Woolly Mammoths were not Tundra-dwellers, but that's where they were found.

These carcasses are about 12-13,000 years old.

The bodies exhibit signs of severe stress — as though they were tossed about in fast-rushing water and slammed against rocks.

There's your evidence, Mr. McNeil.

I'm afraid not, though those are very interesting cases. I've already stated that regional floods are perfectly well allowed by the geological and paleontological evidence, which is all we're talking about here. Regional floods, however massive, are a very far cry from the kind of world-embracing, topping-the-highest-mountains floods that the Noah's ark mythology conceives of.

The great volcano Mount Ararat, for example, on whose heights Noah's ark supposedly came to rest, rises to 16,864 feet (5,140 meters) above present sea level, whereas as I intimated before, oceanic island evidence proves conclusively that there has never (for many millions of years) been a flood that raised the level of the oceans by more than a few hundred feet (a hundred meters or so) above today's sea level.

Glacial lakes and associated large-scale flooding were common on the extremities of ice-age ice sheets, and the instances of frozen mammoths from Siberia that were cited are cases in point. The rivers of Siberia all run exclusively northward, which means even now that the upper courses of Siberian rivers at spring melt flow extremely vigorously while their lower reaches are still locked in ice, producing sizable floods every year. These alone are sufficient to kill herds of unwary animals, such as caribou or (if there still were any) mammoths. However, during the ice age, though the Siberian region was mostly free from ice sheet cover (a matter of the balance of precipitation vs. annual melt, not so much of cold), its rivers flowed towards the then-perpetually frozen Arctic Ocean, and on the way the waters backed up in numerous vast glacial lakes. When those lakes were breached, tremendous downstream flooding would ensue — even more capable of extinguishing life in the mass than the situation we see today.

There's no need to suppose, however, that the mammoth remains in Siberia which have been found were carried to their final resting spots over any very great distances. As we saw in the case of the Glacial Lake Missoula floods, the torrent can rage for hundreds of miles, but we need not presume so for the Siberian mammoths found, nor is any extensive distance traveled required to fit the evidence. One of the intact mammoth corpses was found by the banks of Siberia's Lena River, for example, and there's no particular reason to think that it and others originated very far from where they were found.

http://impearls.blogspot.com/2004_07_18_impearls_archive.html

 

[Mk]

it's precisely the lack of such evidence that leads science to conclude that there never was a worldwide all-embracing flood

Is absence of evidence evidence of absence?

 

[Andre]

Holdit There is ample positive evidence for several regions at lower elevations that those were not flooded in the last 10-20,000 years or so.

The continuous fresh water stratifications of lake sediments for instance would certainly have shown differences like that.

 

[nannoh]

Is absence of evidence evidence of absence?

As Andre has pointed out there is evidence of a lack of flooding in many areas around the globe. I guess Mr.McNeil called this "a lack of evidence" without identifying that it was evidence of an absence of flooding.

What is not mentioned is the anthropological and sociological aspect of these floods and the stories that grew out of the events. The less traveled amongst the storytellers would have imagined that the whole world had been flooded, since their coastal cities and even inland centers would have been flooded and these were pretty well all they knew of the world. It is hypothesisized that the 9500 year old Indian civilization inundated by Ice Age Flooding and resultant rising sea levels (and found in 2002 AD under 40 meters of ocean water off the west coast of India) had a formidable merchant marine fleet of trading ships that traded relatively far from its homeland shores.

This worldly trading, however, does not seem to have stemmed the idea that when the floods destroyed their cities the whole world had been catastrophically flooded. And so, amazingly to this day, people believe that the entire world was flooded at one point during the past. There are stories all the way from India, through Vietnam and up to the Northwest Coast of North America about an all encompassing flood and many are stories about the creation of/or the resurgence of civilization. However, for the most part, these stories are accounts based on the lesser travels of people with a restricted view of the entire globe and who imagined their understanding of their region to be an understanding of the entire world (not unlike the "global warming" hypothesis).

What is becoming more and more apparent as research and exploration continues is that these Ice Age Floods came at various times over an approximately 7000 year period after the Last Glacial Maximum. So that, lacking firm dates for each of the world flood stories, we can roughly assume that each story relates an event timeline that is somewhat different from the next. Only extremely diligent dating techniques would be able to prove this assumption.