Mammoth Herds 'Roamed Fertile Bering Strait In Ice Age'

Ananova ^ | 6-5-2003

[blam]

Mammoth herds 'roamed fertile Bering Strait in Ice Age'

Huge herds of mammoth, wild horses and bison once roamed the land bridge between North America and Siberia, new evidence suggests.

Plant fossils have shown that 24,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, dry grassland covered much of region.

The vegetation would have allowed large populations of mammals to survive all year round on the now-submerged landmass known as Beringia or the Bering Strait.

Scientists writing in the journal Nature said the animals would have been sustained by a diet rich in prairie sage, bunch grasses, and other grass-like plants.

Grant Zazula, from Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, and colleagues analysed plant fossils from three sites in Canada's frozen Yukon territory.

During the Ice Age, the area would have had vegetation similar to that in eastern Beringia.

The scientists concluded that the region would have borne a grass-dominated ecosystem known as "mammoth steppe".

They wrote: "This vegetation was unlike that found in modern Arctic tundra, which can sustain relatively few mammals, but was instead a productive ecosystem of dry grassland that resembled extant (present) subarctic steppe communities."

Story filed: 18:40 Wednesday 4th June 2003

[katana]

Golly, I didn't realize there were SUV's around 24,000 years ago. How else can you explain why the climate warmed and Beringia became submerged?

[RightWhale]

We have permafrost here, and there were never glaciers right here.

[blam]

"Maybe, but I am not buying into asteroid impact for these features. They look just like the ones in Alaska and elsewhere where there is permafrost. I suspect the Carolina Bays were formed during the Ice Age at the edge of the ice sheet by permafrost."

Freeper Renfield (who has studied the bays) agrees with you.

[RightWhale]

I haven't studied the Carolina Bays, but similar-looking features in Alaska are right outside my house and especially at Prudhoe Bay and I have looked a little closer at those and watched them change over the past 30 years. I have one developing right in my yard, and I consider that a fortuitous and happy development. If the Arctic and subarctic warming trend continues, we might find 80% of Alaska will be bays like this.

[lepton]

We have permafrost here, and there were never glaciers right here.

That's predominently a precipitation thing. The glaciers in Ohio were stopped by warmth, not lack of precipitation. There is a large difference in latitude between the Carolinas and Southern Ohio. How far are you from Glaciers?

[RightWhale]

How far are you from Glaciers?

About 75 miles to the nearest, which are mountain glaciers. Even during the height of the Ice Age, this area was not glaciated.

[Renfield]

"I suspect the Carolina Bays were formed during the Ice Age at the edge of the ice sheet by permafrost."

Palynological evidence rules this out. During the Pleistocene, the Southern Coastal Plain had a Grass-Pine-Oak-Hickory savanna. THERE WAS NO PERMAFROST IN THE CAROLINAS DURING THE PLEISTOCENE, EVEN DURING THE HEIGHT OF WISCONSINIAN GLACIATION.

I WILL SAY THIS ONE MORE TIME. CAROLINA BAYS ARE A HYDROLOGICAL PHENOMENON. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH COMETS, METEORS, PERMAFROST, WHALES, OR ANY OTHER ODDBALL THEORY.!!!

[blam]

"I WILL SAY THIS ONE MORE TIME. CAROLINA BAYS ARE A HYDROLOGICAL PHENOMENON. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH COMETS, METEORS, PERMAFROST, WHALES, OR ANY OTHER ODDBALL THEORY.!!!"

Here is the article I told you about.

Re-Evaluation Of The Extraterrestrial Origin Of The Carolina Bays (1975)

[Renfield]

"....http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cbayint.html..."

I read this paper several years ago. Look at their figure 5. All the bays are oriented perpendicular to the fall line (i.e., downhill). Without realizing it, the authors disprove their (wildly frivolous) theory by publishing this diagram. IT'S A HYDROLOGICAL PHENOMENON!!

[blam]

The link doesn't work.

[RightWhale]

The glaciers in Ohio were stopped by warmth, not lack of precipitation.

The interior of Alaska was just the same during the Ice Age as now. Vegetation, loess, animals, everything. Well, there aren't mammoths or sabertooth tigers anymore, but they would be happy here if they had survived. Summer was possibly shorter then.

[lepton]

Right. That is different from Ohio. Southern Ohio was a TEMPERATURE cut-off, not a precipitation cut-off - and the Carolinas are much further south. Permafrost in the Carolinas is a bit out there.

[SunkenCiv]

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

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[SunkenCiv]

This is a 2005 topic!

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[SunkenCiv]

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[Rebelbase]

Somewhere back in time someone posted an article on FR about giant sabertooth type cats that occupied the Bearing Land Bridge. The hypothesis was these cats stalled human migration for centuries as the area was people food funnel for the cats.

The presence of large herds of mammals would have been sufficient to draw the cats there at the beginning.

[Rebelbase]

Holy Cow! I just noticed that I sent out a reply to a seven year old post.