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

[blam]

"My money is on solar activity, insolation variations."

I will consider all possibilities. We probably had some of all.

[IYAAYAS]

Thanks for all the good leads, got lotsa good reading to do.

Since we're considering all possibilities...I've always been curious about that dark spot on the sun. What if a small planet closer than mercury got sucked in a long time ago. It would have caused solar-system wide changes, like maybe the drying of mars etc.

[blam]

"...I've always been curious about that dark spot on the sun. What if a small planet closer than mercury got sucked in a long time ago. It would have caused solar-system wide changes, like maybe the drying of mars etc. ."

What dark spot on the sun?

Mars isn't dry.
(Incidently, my theory about the water on Mars. All the water that was there froze, then all the small and large impacts shattered it into very small solid pieces that then mixed with the blowing sand and dust, dirty ice. Any time it gets a little warm in any spot (for whatever reason), the ice begins to melt and creates the little 'riverbeds' that we see pictures of from time to time. Then, the process starts all over again)

[blam]

"Thanks for all the good leads, got lotsa good reading to do."

LOL. Anytime you run out of reading along these lines, let me know. I have many more. (It's my hobby)

[IYAAYAS]

Nevermind, I must have been mixing up mental images of jupiter and sun spots. There are some very cool SOHO pics taken at various light freq's.

Wouldn't an impact vaporize ice instead of fracturing it?

[IYAAYAS]

On a side note, I still have my copy of "cosmos" by Carl Segan that my parents gave me when I was ten. I have since read every one of his books (RIP C.S.) and most of Hawkings books. Anyone who can make science interesting to the masses is/was a great societal asset IMO.

[blam]

"Wouldn't an impact vaporize ice instead of fracturing it?"

Micro-meteorites? Mars' reduced atmosphere would allow many to get through, no?

[stand watie]

!!!!!

[gopheraj]

LOL Did you understand?

[stand watie]

NOPE! i do not speak more than a dozen or so words of Tslagi, and NONE of those are suitable for the forum. i was raised in an area without many Indians. my dad spoke the language, i don't.

free dixie,sw

[gopheraj]

LOL I understand. It means hello and wado is thank you. Those are about it for me. Just learning words and trying to find out info on my great grandfather. Have a website with info and pics on it. You can access the familytreemaker site (if you want to) from my homepage thingy at www.webspawner.com/users/lesterandra

[stand watie]

i was/am lucky. as a result of doing research to join SCV on my CSA ancestor, PVT William James (Little Thunder) Freeman late of the 4th MO Partisan Rangers, i found a whole pile of info on my father's family.

BTW, i'm told his REALname more correctly translates to "thunder that is almost too far away for ears to hear"====>no wonder he chose to call himself Little Thunder! i would have TOO!

free dixie,sw

[gopheraj]

LOL

You are lucky. I haven't found out anything so far about Andrew Jack Shoemaker (Shoemake). I don't know his parents name so I am stumped.

[Robert Drobot]

Bump

[stand watie]

understood. i was, i'll say again, LUCKY!

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

BTW, are you elgible for the Sons of Confederate veterans?? (almost all Cherokee males are, as essentially every male over the age of 12 & NOT a FEW females served the CSA freedom cause.)

to join call 1-800-MY DIXIE or 1-800-MY SOUTH.

free dixie,sw

[aruanan]

Mammoth Herds 'Roamed Fertile Bering Strait In Ice Age'

And then some evil presence caused global warming, ending the Ice Age, flooding the fertile Bering Straits beneath billions of tons of water that had hitherto been safely conserved in ice packs and glaciers.

[gopheraj]

I could if'n I wuz a guy. ;^) I do think that my ancestors who were Rippy's or Coulter's might qualify me though. for the DAR.

[stand watie]

OH-OK! didn't know you were a lady.

you should join the United Daughters of the Confederacy! i think their dues are about 30 bucks a year.

FRee dixie,sw

[lepton]

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

That's awfully far south. I'm not sure how far the Glaciers advanced down the coast, but they only made it a bit north of Dayton in Ohio.