Posted on 01/10/2008 2:43:51 PM PST by blam
Plowing the Ancient Seas: Iceberg scours found off South Carolina
Sid Perkins
Recent sonar surveys off the southeastern coast of the United States have detected dozens of broad furrows on the seafloor—trenches that were carved by icebergs during the last ice age, researchers suggest.
FLOW REVERSAL. Currents driving the icebergs that scoured channels in the seafloor off South Carolina at the height of the last ice age ran almost exactly opposite to today's prevailing currents. Channel shown in inset is about 100 meters wide. Hill, et al.
The channels, roughly parallel to the coast, are between 10 and 100 meters wide and typically less than 10 m deep, says Jenna C. Hill, an oceanographer at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C. She and her team discovered the enigmatic features while conducting oceanographic surveys about 100 kilometers off Georgetown, S.C., in the summer of 2006. Waters in the area range between 170 and 220 m deep, she notes.
Most of the trenches run along straight paths for several kilometers, and one lengthy furrow stretches almost 20 km. Short berms alongside each groove are presumably composed of material that was plowed aside when the channels were carved, says Hill.
The seafloor features generally run in a southwest-northeast direction. However, the researchers noticed that some of the channels they discovered during a second survey last summer ended with a semicircular pit at their southwestern terminus. Suddenly, says Hill, the features made sense: Icebergs had plowed the furrows, and pits marked the sites where the ice masses became grounded and later melted.
The seafloor culs-de-sac indicate that the currents driving the icebergs flowed to the southwest, opposite to prevailing currents today. At present, warm waters of the northeast-flowing Gulf Stream bathe the region, says Hill.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
Hillary’s behind this somehow....
So...the early Americans could have ventured from the Topper Site to the coast to watch the iceberg races?
I guess Al Gore is right. It is warmer now than it was during the last ice age.
soooo, what made the ice disappear? the flintsones cars?
Didn’t bother to read it all, but did they bother to mention that the seas were 100-130M lower at the time?
Cows have nothing on the brontosaurus in the methane production department. Haven’t you ever had a brontoburger?
yeah, me and barney rubble and mr. slat bbq’d some once. it was great. bam bam really enjoyed but pebbles is more of an herbivore.
It’s a good question. What was going on when the icebergs were moving off S Car? Likely much of the Ice Age was breaking up and sea level was at least part way back to where it is now.
Yes.
" However, she and her colleagues suggest that an offshore shift in the Gulf Stream at the height of the last ice age—when sea levels were more than 100 m lower than they are now—would have allowed glacially fed, iceberg-rich coastal currents to penetrate this far south."
Weren’t they going to adjust that map for continental drift at some point? North America and Europe should be closer together.
I don't know.
The continents are drifing apart at about the same rate as your fingernails grow...so, even 10-15,000 years doesn't represent a significant amount of drift.
Africa and South American began drifting apart about 120 million years ago. So....
between 10 and 100 meters wide and typically less than 10 m deepPretty pathetic ice age, that was. Thanks blam.
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So, that's what those lines are...I was wondering, looks like dodgem cars been playin' in the Gulf...
Holy mother of Warming, California has a hemorrhoid!
actually this gives credence to the idea that clovis were solutrians who followed the ice edges in small boats from europe to america. the currents would have been favorable for this venture.
No THIS is fascinating. I’ve wondered about the possibility of this for years. At one time, I speculated that the Carolina Bays might have been formed by icebergs that had been stranded by a tsunami.
By the way, blam, a local historian told me on Tuesday, that a team of archaeologists working on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is shortly to publish a paper that will “blow the lid off” currently accepted theories of the peopling of the Americas. He said the archaeologists found tools that they have dated to 20,000 years ago. I’ll keep you posted on this.
Ice breaks off at the mouth of the Hudson and heads south, carried by a then prevailing current. Global temp drops, sea level drops and the bergs head downhill toward the continental shelf.
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