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How it happened: The catastrophic flood that cooled the Earth
Breitbart ^ | February 24, 2008

Posted on 02/25/2008 2:36:06 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

Canadian geologists say they can shed light on how a vast lake, trapped under the ice sheet that once smothered much of North America, drained into the sea, an event that cooled Earth's climate for hundreds of years.

During the last ice age, the Laurentide Ice Sheet once covered most of Canada and parts of the northern United States with a frozen crust that in some places was three kilometres (two miles) thick.

As the temperature gradually rose some 10,000 years ago, the ice receded, gouging out the hollows that would be called the Great Lakes.

Beneath the ice's thinning surface, an extraordinary mass of water built up -- the glacial lake Agassiz-Ojibway, a body so vast that it covered parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, North Dakota, Ontario and Minnesota.

And then, around 8,200 years ago, Agassiz-Ojibway massively drained, sending a flow of water into the Hudson Strait and into the Labrador Sea that was 15 times greater than the present discharge of the Amazon River.

By some estimates, sea levels rose 14 metres (45 feet) as a result.

How the great flood was unleashed has been a matter of debate.

Some experts suggest an ice dam was smashed down, or the gushing water spewed out over the top of the icy lid.

Quebec researchers Patrick Lajeunesse and Guillaume Saint-Onge believe, though, that the outburst happened under the ice sheet, rather than above it or through it.

In a study appearing on Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, the pair describe how they criss-crossed Hudson Bay on a research vessel, using sonar to scan more than 10,500 kilometres (6,000 miles) to get a picture of the bay floor.

In the south of the bay, they found lines of deep waves in the sandy bed, stretching more than 900 kilometres (562 miles) in length and some 1.7 metres (5.5 feet) deep.

These are signs that the bay's floor, protected by the mighty lid of ice, was swept by a mighty current many years ago but has been still ever since, they say.

In the west of the bay, they found curious marks in the shape of parabolas twisting around to the northeast.

The arcs were chiselled as much as three metres (10 feet) into the sea bed and found at depths of between 80 and 205 metres (260 and 666 feet).

The duo believe that this part of the bay had icebergs that were swept by the massive current.

The bergs' jagged tips were trapped in the sea bed and acted like a pivot. As the icebergs swung around, other protruding tips ripped arc-like tracks on the bay floor.

Also presented as evidence are deep submarine channels and deposits of red sediment that stretch from land west of Hudson Bay right across the northwestern floor of the bay itself -- both point to a current that swept all before it.

"Laurentide ice was lifted buoyantly, enabling the flood to traverse southern Hudson Bay under the ice sheet," the study suggests.

Previous work suggests the flood was so huge that it affected climate around the world.

The influx of freshwater into the North Atlantic reduced ocean salinity so much that this braked the transport of heat flowing from the tropics to temperate regions.

Temperatures dropped by more than three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in Western Europe for 200-400 years -- a mini-Ice Age in itself.


TOPICS: Canada; Culture/Society; Extended News; US: Illinois; US: Michigan; US: Minnesota; US: Ohio
KEYWORDS: agassizojibway; agw; atlanticocean; blacksea; blackseaflood; canada; catastrophism; environment; environmental; environmentalism; flood; geology; geoscience; glaciation; glaciers; globalcooling; globalwarming; godsgravesglyphs; gorebullwarming; grandcanyon; greatflood; greatlakes; guillaumesaintonge; gulfstream; gw; hudsonbay; hudsonstrait; iceage; labradorsea; laurentideicesheet; manitoba; minnesota; noah; noahsflood; northdakota; ontario; patricklajeunesse; quebec; salinity; saskatchewan; weather; youngerdryas
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; monkapotamus; dead; All

WHOA I wonder if Looter guy ancenstor was there LOL!


41 posted on 02/25/2008 10:06:59 AM PST by SevenofNine ("We are Freepers, all your media belong to us, resistence is futile")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; Killing Time; Beowulf; Mr. Peabody; RW_Whacko; honolulugal; SideoutFred; ...


FReepmail me to get on or off
Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown
Dr. John Ray's
GREENIE WATCH

The Great Global Warming Swindle Video - Back On The Net!!(Mash Here!)


Interesing...
42 posted on 02/25/2008 11:36:30 AM PST by xcamel (Two-hand-voting now in play - One on lever, other holding nose.)
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To: sit-rep
Ah yes!

But, you see, THIS event is (mis)used now to explain “how” the coming global warming will destroy the Gulf Stream and cause another global catastrophe ... Thus requiring socialistic controls over everybody's’s power and energy.

But, what the AGW extremists (conveniently) ignore is that - today - there is NO ice mass this big across Canada - therefore, there can be NO mass melting and NO interruption of the Gulf Stream.

History CANNOT repeat itself (this time!) because the precursors are completely absent! Yet, this time, because it IS convenient for the AGW extremists to -re-use history, they DO WANT to repeat this scenario.

(Note also that there is written history of a massive flood about this frame in the MidEast and around the world

43 posted on 02/25/2008 12:08:50 PM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but Hillary's ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Every civilization has a “great flood” myth because ...

... every once in a while, there is a once-in-500-year great flood.

Odds are, every place on the planet other than mountain-tops has been great flooded at least once.


44 posted on 02/25/2008 1:45:50 PM PST by JustDoItAlways
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To: MNJohnnie

I grew up a thousand miles away from you, and about four miles from the lake’s shoreline. Big lake.

Regarding the article: I’m impressed with these scientists. Insight and intuition, followed up by real research that tends right now to support their hypothesis.

This is how science needs to be done. I commend them.


45 posted on 02/25/2008 3:34:49 PM PST by AFPhys ((.Praying for President Bush, our troops, their families, and all my American neighbors..))
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To: MNJohnnie

Fossil fish capital of the world? Kemmerer, Wyoming, just south of Jackson.


46 posted on 02/25/2008 5:50:25 PM PST by CIDKauf (No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.)
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To: AFPhys
This is how science needs to be done. I commend the

Great insight. I agree with your assessment completely.

47 posted on 02/25/2008 6:14:02 PM PST by MNJohnnie (http://www.iraqvetsforcongress.com ---- Get involved, make a difference.)
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To: CIDKauf
Wow! Wonder why so many fish fossils ended up there?
48 posted on 02/25/2008 6:19:51 PM PST by MNJohnnie (http://www.iraqvetsforcongress.com ---- Get involved, make a difference.)
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To: MNJohnnie

At one time the entire western United States was under water.


49 posted on 02/25/2008 6:21:34 PM PST by CIDKauf (No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.)
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To: CIDKauf

That is a LOT of water.


50 posted on 02/25/2008 6:26:52 PM PST by MNJohnnie (http://www.iraqvetsforcongress.com ---- Get involved, make a difference.)
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To: MNJohnnie

Very interesting area of the coutry. Dinosaur National Monument is just south of Kemmerer in Colorado, and morte dinosuar stuff at Vernal, Utah. The website says that the area around Kemmerer was a “sub-tropical” lake. Other evidence from around the area suggests that the entire Western United States was under water at one time.
http://www.nps.gov/fobu/index.htm


51 posted on 02/25/2008 6:38:58 PM PST by CIDKauf (No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.)
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To: JustDoItAlways

“Odds are, every place on the planet other than mountain-tops has been great flooded at least once.”

The peak of Mt. Everest is littered with marine fossils.


52 posted on 02/25/2008 8:34:51 PM PST by UCANSEE2 (Just saying what 'they' won't.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
As the temperature gradually rose some 10,000 years ago, the ice receded, gouging out the hollows that would be called the Great Lakes.

Now that's climate change.

53 posted on 02/25/2008 8:43:02 PM PST by GOPJ (Do the editors of the L.A. Times realize that illegal immigration is, you know, illegal? Patterico)
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To: sauropod

read


54 posted on 02/25/2008 8:47:19 PM PST by sauropod (Will Hillary bring the silver back to the Whitehouse, or is this all about finishing up the set?)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; 75thOVI; AFPhys; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aristotleman; ...
Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
 
Catastrophism
 
· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic ·
 

55 posted on 02/26/2008 12:26:58 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/___________________Profile updated Tuesday, February 19, 2008)
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To: blam

The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes:
Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization

by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith


56 posted on 02/26/2008 12:29:05 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/___________________Profile updated Tuesday, February 19, 2008)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
As the temperature gradually rose some 10,000 years ago, the ice receded, gouging out the hollows that would be called the Great Lakes.

Wouldn't the gouging have occurred while the ice was building up and moving forward, not while it was melting (receding)?

57 posted on 02/26/2008 1:27:29 PM PST by scan59 (Let consumers dictate market policies. Government just gets in the way.)
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To: JustDoItAlways
The 45 foot increase in sea level, however, sounds too high for a lake which would have been a small fraction of the total sea surface.

I found that odd too. Doesn't seem to be mathematically possible.

58 posted on 02/26/2008 1:33:25 PM PST by scan59 (Let consumers dictate market policies. Government just gets in the way.)
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To: SunkenCiv

I’m so glad we have global warming here in the midwest. It’s more than 20 degrees below normal as it is. I can’t imagine how cold it would be without global warming.


59 posted on 02/26/2008 7:06:47 PM PST by rdl6989
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To: rdl6989

One of the zombies in my family made some cryptic stupid remark about how “people don’t understand” how the weather could be colder because of global warming. The cult think is pretty disturbing.


60 posted on 02/27/2008 6:20:28 AM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/___________________Profile updated Tuesday, February 19, 2008)
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