Ice age at its greatest size then melting
Introduction: Ice age at Glacial Maximum at 500 years
When the largest volume of ice and snow covered the Earth, glacial maximum occurred. At this time forward some ice sheets began melting, while others still grew. The net volume of ice overall began decreasing. In each region, it depended on how cool the summers were and the annual snowfall. Volcanic eruptions during this time dropped off allowing sun to shine, melting ice and thawing lands south of the ice sheets. Highly reflective snow and low atmospheric carbon dioxide had enabled the amount of ice to increase in the past few hundred years. In the middle latitudes, atmospheric moisture remained from warm or cool oceans. In higher latitudes, cold oceans created little moisture in the atmosphere so less snowfall fell over the northern part of North America, Russia and Europe. Heat from the sun began to melt snow and ice from this time forward. Winters at this time would be less cold and summers less warm than today due to oceans still warm especially near the equator.
By now huge ice sheets covered one-third of the Earth’s land. The warm, humid air filled the clouds, cooled, dropping snow over colder lands. From his writings, Job in the Bible seemed to live in this time of snow and ice. Scripture below identifies with this period.
Job 36:28
The clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind.
Job 37:5-10
God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow, fall on the earth and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour. So that all men he has made may know his work, he stops every many from his labor.
The animals take cover; they remain in their dens.
The tempest comes out form its chamber, the cold from the driving winds.
The breath of god produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen.
Job 38:29-30
From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?
North America
The greatest snow deposits would be in the northeastern part of North America. It would descend down to the lower Rocky Mountains. Ice moved slowly into the northern part of the United States reaching south to the 37th parallel. In the upper northern hemispheres and in the Antarctica area, cold air temperatures combined with a warm ocean enabled ice sheets to grow. Combined with high solar radiation loss and still higher volcanism than today, it allowed glaciation to descend to the central Midwest region of the United States. Ice sheets grew and retracted over and over on soft, water-saturated sediments leaving lateral moraines. From Wisconsin, through the St. Lawrence Valley and into northern Maine thin ice sheets formed.
Greatest extent of ice age in North America
Europe and Asia
The greatest snow deposits formed from Eastern Russia to the Scandinavian area of Europe. In Asia, a large sheet of ice covered to the Himalayan Mountains and Swiss Alps area. Ice only came to England, France and Germany near about 400 years after the flood. Most of the time those areas were wet and cool as indicated by hippo fossils dug in those areas.
Ice volume at maximum glaciation would have caused the sea level worldwide to sink 150 to 190 feet. Abundant fossil evidence of this is found on the floor of the North Sea and English Channel. Nonweathered and articulated bones of ice-age mammals are found in abundant amounts on the bottom of the North Sea. Two thousand mammoth molars were dredged within ten years from Dogger Bank in the North Sea. Widespread peat has been found in the offshore sediments at both places indicating it was dry at one time.
Largest size of ice sheets in Europe
South America, Africa and Antarctica
Snow was deposited in the Patagonia area of the southern Andes. Further south, ice sheets covered all regions of Antarctica. In Africa, various moraines and glacial niches in the Lesotho Highlands and parts of Drakensberg of South Africa give indications that ice formed there.
Till
Till was created when glacial ice flowed over land. Various amounts of pebbles, gravel, silt, sand, clay and boulders make up till. Its composition differs depending on the makeup of the land. For example, a coarse-grained till suggests little transport and reworking. The character of the till left in the interior regions like Canada and Scandinavia have successive ice sheets believed to be built up to over 11,000 feet high. Till on the Canadian shield is only 7 to 38 feet thick and mainly found in depressions as much was deposited by streams. Coastal till of European countries located by the sea are less extensive. Most of the till in Norway and Sweden stayed local. In Norway, the till is less than 17 feet thick, 17 to 50 feet thick in Sweden and 7 to 11 feet thick in Finland. By the end of the Ice Age glacial till filled all valleys in those areas as they would be natural traps for glacial debris.
Land Bridges
Land bridges were at their highest elevation during this time. For example, the Bering Strait would be partially dry land connecting Russia to Alaska. Evidence of this are seen in remains of mammoths found on the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic Ocean, on the Pribilof and Unalaska Islands, along the southwest edge of the Bering Sea’s continental shelf and on the shallow ocean bottom surrounding Alaska. Sediments on the Arctic Ocean’s continental shelf and the shelf between England and France contain permafrost, which can only form above sea level.
Atmosphere
At glacial maximum, precipitation would have been at least three times greater than it is today over non-glaciated lands as warm and cold areas collided. This precipitation would have enhanced flood geomorphological features creating multiple terraces in the river valleys. Terraces would be formed when flooding occurred during high melt times and torrents of water eroded river banks. Then a cooling trend occurred and little ice melted therefore little erosion.
Thickness of ice sheet in North America
Ice age glaciers reached an average depth of 2,300 feet in the Northern Hemisphere and 4,000 feet deep in Antarctica. Ice domes developed symmetrically over land masses at this time often exceeding 10,000 feet thick. In North America, the ice sheet was three times higher than the skyscrapers are in Chicago today. Where the ice sheet dropped down to Boston it was five times the height of the Boston skyline. Higher in latitude above Boston, the ice sheet was 17 times the height of the Montreal skyline and 9 times the highest buildings in Toronto.
Ice sheets and non-glaciated land close to a storm track would receive twice the rain and snow than over oceans due to the storm track. The average ice depth was about 2400 feet thick. Two ice domes formed over the Labrador-Ungava and Keewatin areas. Ice caps are deep in places in the mountains of Western Antarctica extending into the flatter plains.
Mammoths trapped in ice age
Mammals during ice age
Animals not buried by snow storms or dying from lack of food were able to migrate by glacial maximum to warmer areas. South of North America and Europe ice sheets in hippopotamus and reindeer fossils are found together. Reindeer, musk oxen and woolly mammoths are found in North America. In the valley of the Thames in southern England archeologists have found woolly mammoths, wooly rhinoceros, musk ox, reindeer, hippos, and cave lions found. They are also found in France and Germany. At glacial maximum, the depth of ice on Antarctica averaged about 4,000 feet. East Antarctica would have received more than this amount since it would have started the ice age mostly above sea level. Cold tolerant animals like the musk ox and reindeer could not migrate to the far north. They would be forced to live south of the ice sheets in Europe and North America, but could move into Siberia and Alaska where only mountain glaciers developed.
Mammoths are found together with other ice age animals in surface deposits throughout the middle and high latitudes. Some are found in ice wedges within the permafrost. Other mammoth remains have spear points embedded in them. The mammoths in Siberia are found only in the surface layer with huge dragonfly insects called Meganeura with wingspans of 71 centimeters. Throughout northern Russia the carcasses of mammoths and rhinoceros are found. Many are found in frozen tundra mixed with sediments throughout river valleys and flood plains buried near the upper surface. Female mammoths normally have one baby every two years. It would have required some time for mammoths to multiply and migrate from Mount Ararat to Siberia. Now, five-hundred years after the Flood, the ice age is fully developed in the most northern and southern parts of the world of the world. The widespread remains of mammoths and saber-toothed tigers are found as far as Central America.
Many mammoths remains have been found near the Yenisei, Yana, and Chulym Rivers in northern Russia. Woolly mammoth fossils are also abundant in the wastelands of Siberia, the Arctic coast, on the New Siberian Islands and other Arctic Ocean islands north of Siberia and on the Bering Sea Islands. These islands are on very shallow shelves indicating there once was land bridges attaching land to islands. Others are found as far south as Mongolia and Kazakhstan.
Pluvial Lakes formed in US during the ice age that have mostly dried up
Massive extinction of animals
Many large mammals became extinct or disappeared from entire continents unable to escape the relentless snows, newly created ice fields and lack of food. These mammals include mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed tigers and ground sloths. Scientists find about 34 genera of large mammals becoming extinct in North America. Included in this loss were native horses, camels, lions, armadillo-like glyptodonts, giant peccaries, mountain deer, giant beavers, four-pronged antelopes, dire wolves, and giant short-faced bears. The change was too sudden over such a large area. Each would have starved to death by the time they found a suitable habitat.
During a freeway expansion project in San Diego, 2016 smashed bones and teeth of elephant-like mastodon bones and teeth were unearthed. It seems an anvil and three stone hammers smashed their bones as researched by the San Diego Natural History Museum. Lying in a vertical position, a mastodon tusk extended down into an older layer.
Cave men and women
As Ice Age proceeded it became cold and dry below the ice sheets. People needed to migrate south stressed by this harsh climate. Harvesting of crops and abundant grazing fields of grass diminished over time. Fruits, vegetables, and grains would have been scarce. Major food source became hunting animals and gathering lichens and roots. Some thinking this weather would end soon sought the safety of caves. What anthropologists call Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man were really humans trapped by unrelenting snow looking for safety. Denisovans are another type of cave men found in caves. They seem to be closely related to Neanderthals and their fossil remains have been found in Siberian caves. Needing skins to stay warm they returned to their hunting ways to survive in the while in the cave and afterwards.
Cave paintings throughout the world show drawings, of what they call cavemen, hunting large animals especially mammoths and mastodons. In North America, spear or arrow points embedded into the bones of fourteen of them have been found as well as a toxodon in South America. In the Los Angeles area, the remains of thirty mammoths are at the museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.
End of Ice Age 550 years after the flood (50 years of glacier melting)
Overview
The Ice Age was a relatively rain free time with water tables low as stream levels flowed in trickles. As the ice melted rivers overflowed their banks and lakes formed. In the equatorial areas of the world the atmosphere became warmer, rivers ran full, sea levels rose and depleted lakes filled. The average ocean temperature by now had cooled to 50 degrees. Less ocean evaporation created fewer clouds in the northern latitudes. The sun’s radiant heat began melting the ice sheets. The northern part of the ice sheets still cooled, but the middle and southern part of the ice sheet rapidly melted. Summers became windy, warmer, and drier while rivers swelled with melt water and sediment. Drastic ecological changes stressed plants and animals with the quick change from cold to warm. Some would become extinct being forced toward the equatorial region.
Cold winters remained at higher and middle latitudes as the ice age ended, continuing until today. At the end of the ice age much colder winters, at higher latitudes would drive the storm track farther south than in the modern climate. This created cooler temperatures and rainy areas over the upper part of the southwest deserts. Ice sheets melted, the climate warmed and many species became extinct wiped out by flood waters or unable to adjust to wet and warm conditions for survival. A southward shift of the average storm track after glacial maximum of about 5-10 degrees latitude would greatly increase rainfall in these now dry locations. The amount of moisture available for rainfall in non-glaciated areas was at least three times higher than today. During deglaciation, precipitation in some of the regions between the 20th and 40th degrees north increased for decades. Land bridges began to be covered by water stopping animals from crossing on feet.
As volcanic eruptions lessened more sunlight warmed the earth. Carbon dioxide decreased. The high volcanic dust and aerosol that enabled glacial advances decreased allowing glacial retreat. Ice melted rapidly about 33 feet a year. Much of the ice sheets were melted in less than 100 years especially the periphery part of the ice sheets and the thickness of inner sheets. This melting caused catastrophic flooding.
By this time in the northern hemisphere, some woolly mammoths feeding in temperate areas became trapped around the oceans edge in Siberia and Alaska as the area continued to cool. At glacial maximum, the relatively warm ocean at 50 degrees created a mild climate. As volcano eruptions subsided less airborne matter was created, increasing the sunshine. The ice sheets inland continued giving off cold air from the thick ice sheets. Air spreading out over the oceans in higher latitude would cause further cooling of the deep ocean to the present 46 degrees. The mid and high-latitude atmosphere during winter would gradually cool because of the presence of the ice sheets.
North America
Western side
In the southwestern United States the ancient shore lines in the Owens Valley of eastern California have been connected to end moraines of former Sierra Nevada glaciers. This melting caused catastrophic flooding.
Narrow land blocking the flow of lakes burst at places. One example is downriver flooding due to Lake Missoula bursting open.
Eastern and Midwest side
Ice sheet in eastern Canada would have been buttressed on the continental shelf, and would have partially drained by fast-moving ice streams, through Hudson Strait, the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The ice sheet was drained by a series of fjords.
Europe/Asia
The freshwater Black Sea then with grassland steppes. Settlements increased before ice age.
The ice age lasted 400 years as then the lands became warmer and wetter (changing winds blowing off the oceans)
The Black Sea region was an isolated freshwater lake surrounded by farmland steppes until it was flooded by the rise of the water from the Mediterranean Sea. What is now the Black Sea was known then as Pontian Lake. The Black Sea coastline extended twelve miles out into the sea and three-hundred feet deep from data gained from Robert Ballard’s deep-sea explorations. Between the sea and lake the Bosporus land-bridge connected Turkey and Greece. It blocked water in Pontian Lake from flowing into the Mediterranean Sea. As the sea level rose from melting glaciers this narrow strip of land broke. About ten cubic miles of water each day flowed through this opening. This is enough water to cover New York city to a depth of 2,500 feet. Some towns or cities built in coastal areas flooded. Buildings are found six to eight feet deep below ocean or lake waters. After the Bosporus land-bridge broke sea water entered the Black Sea.
Other lakes formed from melting glaciers in lower areas of land depressions. Examples of land bridges breaking are the Baltic Ice Lake, Aral Sea, Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. South of former ice sheets in Asia, hippos and reindeer are found. In England and Wales, reindeer, woolly mammoths and musk oven (all require cold) are found intermixed with hippopotamus (they need warmth). We do not observe this happening today.
Africa
In the early post flood period, the Sahara Desert region and Turkey were wet as moist air blew over those areas. As oceans cooled air circulation changed all of earth. In northern Africa the wind pattern moved southerly, dry air flowed over North Africa and the Atlas Mountains. Wet areas as shown on the Africa map became Mediterranean. As decades passed the land turned to desert as little rainfall occurred and soil developed after the flood blew away leaving rock and sand.. Deserts formed in belts 30 degrees north and south of equator.
Big lakes in the world such as Lake Chad in N. Africa and the eastern Sahara Desert were well watered. Geologic evidence shows that Lake Chad once was 620 miles long requiring a water intake to become that large. Radio wave technology shows ancient drainage canals as large as the Nile River Valley. Fossils of hippos, buffalo, elephant, crocodile giraffe antelope, cave lions and wooly rhinoceros represent animals found there that need a wet environment not seen for about three thousand years. These are shown on rock pictures and carvings also found in that region. Crocodiles still survive today in Western Sahara lakes.
Polar areas
Antarctica and Greenland ice fields continued to grow during this time due to warm, but cooling ocean air blowing over the continent.
Map of Africa during the Ice age
Loess formation
Strong winds and relatively low precipitation characterized the climate over continental areas south of the ice sheets. Blowing sand and dust frequently occurred, especially during the dry season. Due to that, extensive ice-age sand dunes formed. Examples are the Nebraska sand dunes, loess sheets found south of the former ice sheets and sometimes those intermingled with glacial till near the periphery. Loess are wind-blown deposits found over much of the Midwestern United States. It is especially thick east of major rivers valleys, such as the Mississippi River valley. Loess is also found over much of central Europe and eastward into Russia and China. Wind-blown dust is also extensive in the lower sections of Greenland ice cores, which presumably gathered at this time.
Sea floor is covered with massive craters
Volcanic action did not just occur on land. Scientists find that eighty percent of volcanic eruptions occurred on the ocean floor especially at mid-ocean ridges. Remnants of hundreds of deep-sea eruptions have been studied and analyzed from the seafloor in the Arctic Ocean and the northwestern part of the Barents Sea. These appeared as ice sheets melted but could have formed anytime from the beginning of the flood through this time. Craters connected to deep ocean gas chimneys show gas rising from deep hydrocarbon reservoirs. The hydrocarbon reservoirs are estimated to be twice the size of Russia. Over 600 flares are seen around these craters. Called hydrates, they are solid mixtures of gas and water uncovered as the ice sheets rapidly retreated. When the hydrates became over-pressurized, gas flares shot up allowing enormous amounts of methane to be released and crater walls to melt and expand.
Deglaciation
Winter snowfall at this time was light. Warmth from the summer sunshine enabled ice sheets to melt.
Researchers find the average deglaciation temperature for central Michigan began May first. An average of 40 feet of ice melted each year during the first 50 to 87 years of deglaciation. Lower and middle latitude continental ice sheets melted slower, but all probably melted within 200 years. Ice thickness occurred slower in the higher latitudes and would be less thick than recorded today. This is because the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets did not have enough time to build to their current size. Eventually snows increased over the higher latitudes and the ice sheets grew to about 600 feet thick. As they built, ocean temperatures around them fell from 50 to 39 degrees Fahrenheit. As the water temperatures cooled, snowfall tapered off to the present slow rate. Antarctica receives about 5 inches of precipitation and the interior less than 2 inches a year now. The 9,850 feet thick, East Antarctica ice sheet is now a polar desert receiving little annual snowfall.
As the ice sheets rapidly melted, they created ten to twenty times more than water recorded today. Vast flood plains formed from these flooding waters especially near the Arctic Ocean, along the Lena River and in Siberia. Tremendous volumes of water, broken pieces of glacial ice and alluvial sediments filled rivers. Once deposits filled the flood plain, another torrent of water from melting ice sheets eroded the alluvial sediments. This gush of water formed a valley. Winter came and the water flow decreased. As summer came rapid glacier melt occurred again creating a canyon from torrents of water. Strong then weak flowing water created terraces.
After the fear of glacial floods subsided mammoth remains appeared. Scientists find most were killed during the beginning of rapid ice melt. Remains normally are found on the highest terraces or bluffs of ancient rivers. This especially occurred during summer and during times of episodic flooding from very hot air forming or from torrential downpours. Large fluctuations in river volume occurred. Torrential flows during the summer melt easily eroded Flood sediments creating a canyon between the river. Rivers ran slow in the winter. Water flowed over the flood plain depositing sediments. This process happened over and over for years. The visible result is a pattern of terraced slopes along rivers south of the ice sheets.
Immediately south of the melting ice sheets, the cold climate created permafrost by glacial maximum. Water could not percolate below the permafrost in summer. Instead of being absorbed in the ground along the way, the frozen ground allowed sheets of water to travel much further. This added to the volume of water carried by rivers. In Wisconsin, scientists found the average discharge twenty-five times greater at that time than at present. Added to the torrents of water, friction and collisions of sand and gravel in the river created ten times the erosional impact versus a river carrying soft material like silt, clay, and fine sand.
Animal life during deglaciation
As ice sheets rapidly melted in Alaska and Siberia, rivers swelled. Severe flooding south of the ice sheets rapidly buried animals unable to escape. Cold, dry winds blowing off ice sheets slowed or killed plant growth. Grazing mammals had much less if any to eat. Fossil evidence shows some entered caves for protection. Other animals became caught in violent dust storms of loess south of the ice sheets. They died of suffocation or quick burial. Mammals also became trapped in the melting permafrost’s sticky mud.
Millions of mammoths and thousands of woolly rhinoceroses lived predominately at this time in Siberia, Alaska or islands north of them in cool, but habitable areas. Cooling took place in northern continental areas (otherwise mammoths would have migrated out of Siberia) but not so rapid as to prevent many from dying. They seem to have ended their life seeking safety in caves, stuck in mud or wiped out in flooding as discussed above or covered by blowing loess. Many mammoths found look famished with lack of fat and ribs showing under the skin. Some of their carcasses did not decompose before burial. They still have vegetation in their mouth and intestinal tract. Birds Eye Frozen Food Company said temperatures needed for vegetation to be preserved internally needed to be below 150 degrees Fahrenheit. If frozen too slow mammoth’s exterior would freeze but internal organs would rot. Bacteria in its intestines would have time to eat and digest its inside organs. Many speedier types of animals were able to escape to warmer regions living. Being more mobile, they left less fossil remains. Still giant sloths and saber-toothed tigers probably went extinct during this period.