Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Melting Glacier Reveals Ancient Tree Stumps
Live Science ^ | 10-30-2007

Posted on 11/01/2007 10:28:47 AM PDT by blam

Melting Glacier Reveals Ancient Tree Stumps

LiveScience.com
Tue Oct 30, 2:15 PM ET

Melting glaciers in Western Canada are revealing tree stumps up to 7,000 years old where the region's rivers of ice have retreated to a historic minimum, a geologist said today.

Johannes Koch of The College of Wooster in Ohio found the fresh-looking, intact tree stumps beside retreating glaciers in Garibaldi Provincial Park, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) north of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Radiocarbon dating of the wood from the stumps revealed the wood was far from fresh—some of it dated back to within a few thousand years of the end of the last ice age.

"The stumps were in very good condition sometimes with bark preserved," said Koch, who conducted the work as part of his doctoral thesis at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Koch will present his results on Oct. 31 at the Geological Society of America annual meeting in Denver.

The pristine condition of the wood, he said, can best be explained by the stumps having spent all of the last seven millennia under tens to hundreds of meters of ice. All stumps were still rooted to their original soil and location.

"Thus they really indicate when the glaciers overrode them, and their kill date gives the age of the glacier advance," Koch said. The age of the newly revealed ancient trees also indicates how long the glaciers have covered this region.

The recently warming climate released the stumps from their icy tombs, Koch said.

Koch compared the kill dates of the trees in the southern and northern Coast Mountains of British Columbia and those in the mid- and southern Rocky Mountains in Canada to similar records from the Yukon Territory, the European Alps, New Zealand and South America. He also looked at the age of Oetzi, the prehistoric mummified alpine "Iceman" found at Niederjoch Glacier, and similarly well-preserved wood from glaciers and snowfields in Scandinavia.

The radiocarbon dates seem to be the same around the world, according to Koch. There have been many advances and retreats of these glaciers over the past 7,000 years, but no retreats that have pushed them back so far upstream as to expose these trees.

The age of the tree stumps gives new emphasis to the well-documented before-and-after photographs of retreating glaciers during the past 100 years.

"It seems like an unprecedented change in a short amount of time," Koch said. "From this work and many other studies looking at forcings of the climate system, one has to turn away from natural ones alone to explain this dramatic change of the past 150 years."


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: agw; ancient; catastrophism; glacier; globalwarming; godsgravesglyphs; stumps; tree
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 101-117 next last

1 posted on 11/01/2007 10:28:49 AM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

GGG Ping.


2 posted on 11/01/2007 10:29:10 AM PDT by blam (Secure the border and enforce the law)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

You mean 7,000 years ago we had global warming too?


3 posted on 11/01/2007 10:29:33 AM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

That’s impossible. We’re constantly told that right now is the warmest we’ve ever been.


4 posted on 11/01/2007 10:31:00 AM PDT by Hoodlum91 (I support global warming.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2banana
You mean 7,000 years ago we had global warming too?

Yeah, but that was good global warming.

5 posted on 11/01/2007 10:31:17 AM PDT by Steely Tom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: blam

So the trees grew there when it was much warmer in the past then today obviously.

Oh.

It was natural back then for trees to grow there and no ice?

But... not now?

Got it.


6 posted on 11/01/2007 10:31:52 AM PDT by Names Ash Housewares
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
An inconvenient tree stump?
7 posted on 11/01/2007 10:32:41 AM PDT by Clint N. Suhks (ah!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

The last paragraph was written by someone worried about future government funding for their chosen field of study.


8 posted on 11/01/2007 10:33:15 AM PDT by bigfootbob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

Uhhhh....

If they are finding tree stumps,

that means there were trees at one time,

which means the ice didn’t cover the area,

which means there must have been global warming 7,000 years ago.

==

Those melting glaciers could mess up the current global warming cries.


9 posted on 11/01/2007 10:33:15 AM PDT by TomGuy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Names Ash Housewares

Hehe!


10 posted on 11/01/2007 10:33:22 AM PDT by TheDon (The DemocRAT party is the party of TREASON! Overthrow the terrorist's congress!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: blam
"one has to turn away from natural ones alone to explain this dramatic change of the past 150 years."

Unbelievable. Clearly, a natural process buried these trees in ice. But the reverse process simply MUST be caused by man.

11 posted on 11/01/2007 10:33:36 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (The broken wall, the burning roof and tower. And Agamemnon dead.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2banana
Boy, you would think there was some kind of repeating cycle going on. Nah, can't be.


12 posted on 11/01/2007 10:34:20 AM PDT by Names Ash Housewares
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: 2banana

No, we had global COOLING. The global warming was for a long period preceding that.


13 posted on 11/01/2007 10:34:59 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (G-d is not a Republican. But Satan is definitely a Democrat.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: 2banana

That part always seems to get glossed over in these articles.


14 posted on 11/01/2007 10:35:03 AM PDT by SengirV
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Names Ash Housewares

The discovery and proliferation of fire by cavemen allowed these trees to grow during the last human-induced globull warming period. Early Man Bear Pig then killed all the cavemen and presto, Ice Age.


15 posted on 11/01/2007 10:35:47 AM PDT by eyedigress
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: blam

If a glacier destroys a forest, and nobody hears it.......


16 posted on 11/01/2007 10:36:45 AM PDT by G-Bear (Religiously, five times a day, I turn my back on Mecca and fart!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
"It seems like an unprecedented change in a short amount of time," Koch said. "From this work and many other studies looking at forcings of the climate system, one has to turn away from natural ones alone to explain this dramatic change of the past 150 years."

He is a globull warming alarmist to the end. While the globull warming 7,000 years ago HAD to have been a natural occurance, there is NO WAY it is THIS time. </sarc>

17 posted on 11/01/2007 10:37:51 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (G-d is not a Republican. But Satan is definitely a Democrat.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

The planet is just naturally switching its temperature, as it does from time to time. Al Gore doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it. We’re coming out of the “little ice age”.


18 posted on 11/01/2007 10:38:33 AM PDT by DesScorp
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
one has to turn away from natural ones alone to explain this dramatic change of the past 150 years

The invention of photography, which coincided with the discovery of socialism explains most of the dramatic change.

19 posted on 11/01/2007 10:38:43 AM PDT by RightWhale (anti-razors are pro-life)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
It’s interesting that all this occurred during the present interglacial. So, after the last glacial max the glaciers retreated enough for a forest to appear, but then marched back down to cover the forest until now. Curious.
20 posted on 11/01/2007 10:40:37 AM PDT by colorado tanker (I'm unmoderated - just ask Bill O'Reilly)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 101-117 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson