Starship Asterisk*

bystander wrote:
Where Did The Mammoths Really Go?
University of Washington | Northwest Science & Technology | Spring 2010

Fifteen thousand years ago, North America was home to roughly 35 different types of large mammals which no longer exist today, such as saber tooth cats, giant ground sloths, and mammoths. Many species weighed over two thousand pounds; a full-grown adult male mammoth could weigh up to 20,000 pounds, the weight of a city bus. Why did so many large animals die off by the end of the last ice age? It's rare to find a mystery as enigmatic or hotly debated as the cause for the disappearance of North America's largest known mammals.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/04/well-preserved-strawberry-blond-mammoth-discovered-in-siberia/ wrote:
Well-preserved strawberry-blond mammoth discovered in Siberia
By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, April 04, 2012

[b][color=#0000FF]April 4, 2012: A newly discovered frozen mammoth, which is thought to have been approximately two and a half years old when it died, appears to have been cut open at some point. (F Latreille/Mammuthus/MCE)[/color][/b]

---

<<A juvenile mammoth, nicknamed "Yuka," was found entombed in Siberian ice near the shores of the Arctic Ocean and shows signs of being cut open by ancient people.

The remarkably well preserved frozen carcass was discovered in Siberia as part of a BBC/Discovery Channel-funded expedition and is believed to be at least 10,000 years old, if not older. If further study confirms the preliminary findings, it would be the first mammoth carcass revealing signs of human interaction in the region. The carcass is in such good shape that much of its flesh is still intact, retaining its pink color. The blonde-red hue of Yuka's woolly coat also remains.

"This is the first relatively complete mammoth carcass -- that is, a body with soft tissues preserved -- to show evidence of human association," Daniel Fisher, curator and director of the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology, told Discovery News. Fisher, who is also a professor, worked with an international team of experts to analyze Yuka. French mammoth hunter Bernard Buigues of the scientific organization "Mammuthus" saved the specimen from falling into the hands of private collectors.

Although carbon dating is still in the works, the researchers believe Yuka died at least 10,000 years ago, but may be much older. The animal was about 2 ½ years old when it died. Fisher described what likely happened on that fateful day: "It appears that Yuka was pursued by one or more lions or another large field, judging from deep, unhealed scratches in the hide and bite marks on the tail," Fisher said. "Yuka then apparently fell, breaking one of the lower hind legs. At this point, humans may have moved in to control the carcass, butchering much of the animal and removing parts that they would use immediately. They may, in fact, have reburied the rest of the carcass to keep it in reserve for possible later use. What remains now would then be 'leftovers' that were never retrieved."

He explained that the removed parts include most of the main core mass of Yuka's body, including organs, vertebrae, ribs, associated musculature, and some of the meat from upper parts of the legs. The lower parts of each leg and the trunk remain intact. Buigues added that it appears the humans were particularly interested in the animal's fat and its large bones, which they kept close to the body of the carcass. He believes it is possible that a ritual may have taken place involving the bones.

Kevin Campbell of the University of Manitoba also studied Yuka. Campbell famously published the genetic code of mammoth hemoglobin a few years ago. "Most permafrost-preserved mammoth specimens consist solely of bones or bone fragments that currently provide little new insight into the species' biology in life, even if DNA can be extracted and sequenced from these samples," Campbell said. "This extremely rare finding of a near complete specimen, like the discovery of the baby mammoth Lyuba in 2007, will be a boon to researchers as it will help them link observed phenotypes (morphological features that we can see) with genotype (DNA sequences)." Such information could help reveal whether or not mammoths had all of the same hair colors that humans do. An intriguing and controversial application would be to bring a mammoth back to life via cloning. Campbell supports pursuit of that goal, saying it "may well lead to important new discoveries in bioengineering." Buigues is also in favor and said, "I'm not against having a mammoth in my garden in future."

Tim Walker, producer and director of a forthcoming BBC/Discovery Channel show called "Woolly Mammoth"that will feature Yuka, told Discovery News that cloning a mammoth could take years or even decades. "Then, if it did happen, wouldn't a single mammoth be lonely and sad?" he asked. "They were, after all, communal animals.">>

Some scientists have thought that the Earth's Ice Age conditions 12,900 years ago were triggered by a meteor or comet. But a recent study suggests that the evidence pointing to the ancient impact is nothing more than fungus and other matter.

According to the impact theory, the event could have caused the extinction of North American mammoths and other species, and killed the early human hunters that occupied North America at the time. Yet the new study concludes that sediment samples taken as evidence of the impact are nothing more than common fossilized balls of fungus and fecal matter - not exactly signs of a space rock crashing into Earth.

Further, the samples -- spherules of carbon used by impact proponents to justify a meteor -- appear thousands of years before and after the Ice Age in sediment records, suggesting they have nothing to do with the impact, scientists said in a statement.

"People get very excited about the idea of a major impact causing a catastrophic fire and the abrupt climate change in that period, but there just isn't the evidence to support it," said lead researcher Andrew C. Scott at the University of London in the UK.

Still, proponents of an impact theory are not backing down.

According to theory, a comet impact or airburst in the atmosphere produced an enormous fire that raged from California to Europe. Melting volumes of ice in the North American ice sheet, the fire sent cold water surging into the world's oceans and knocked off balance the circulation of currents responsible for global heat transport.

Known as the Younger Dryas period or "Big Freeze," the 1,300 years of glacial conditions that followed is well documented in ocean cores and ancient soil samples.
...
The debate may heat up when both sides, including Pinter and Kennett, participate in a public debate at the University of Wyoming Aug. 14.

bystander wrote:

The Code wrote:The links I posted are by the by. The important stuff is what I wrote, And hopefully some body will look into it, in greater detail.

Sorry, Mark. When you use pseudo-scientific sources as the basis of your musings, very few people are going to give it serious consideration.

The Code wrote:The links I posted are by the by. The important stuff is what I wrote, And hopefully some body will look into it, in greater detail.

More than 13,000 years ago, millions of large mammals such as mammoths, mastodon, shrub-ox, bison, ground sloths and camels roamed the Americas and may have had profound influences on the environment according to research in a paper titled, “Methane Emissions from Extinct Megafauna” released in the publication Nature Geosciences Sunday.

The extinction of these large herbivores, which also include horses, llamas and stag moose in addition to the giant wooly mammoth, probably led to an abrupt decrease in methane emissions and atmospheric concentrations of the gas with potential implications for climate change says Dr. Felisa Smith, Associate Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico.
...
Approximately 13,400 years ago, the Americas supported a mammal fauna that was richer than that of Africa today explained Smith. “Around 11,500 years ago and within 1,000 years of the arrival of humans in the New World, 80 percent of these large-bodied mammals were extinct,” said Smith in the paper.

“This is arguably the first detectable influence of humans on the environment going back 13,400 years to when humans first got to the continent,” said Smith. “I think that it’s intriguing because there are a lot of ramifications. Potentially, if the decrease in methane, which is synchronous with this ice spell, was actually the cause, then humans contributed to the Younger Dryas cold episode.”

• Nature Geosciences 3, 23 May 2010, doi: 10.1038/ngeo877

Jack Williams is a plant ecologist at heart. He likes to figure out how — and why — plant communities change over time.
...
Recently, these interests took on a new dimension for him. In November, Williams and his colleagues, including graduate student Jacquelyn Gill, released research on how the extinction of ancient large plant-eating animals, such as mammoths and mastodons, affected ecosystems when the enormous mammals began their decline in North America about 15,000 years ago.

However, in doing so, the researchers also raised intriguing new questions about how those animals might have died in the first place.
...
They found that the death of these creatures apparently prompted a proliferation of broadleaved trees, and ultimately, the accumulation of woody debris that contributed to a dramatic increase in wildfires. They also determined that the animals' decline probably was gradual, meaning they didn't die from some sudden event.

Taken together, the evidence appeared to eliminate some popular theories about what caused their mass extinction, including the impact of a meteor or comet, a "blitzkrieg" of human hunting, or a loss of habitat due to climate changes.

• Science, Vol 326, No 5956, 20 Nov 2009, DOI: 10.1126/science.1179504

Fifteen thousand years ago, North America was home to roughly 35 different types of large mammals which no longer exist today, such as saber tooth cats, giant ground sloths, and mammoths. Many species weighed over two thousand pounds; a full-grown adult male mammoth could weigh up to 20,000 pounds, the weight of a city bus. Why did so many large animals die off by the end of the last ice age? It's rare to find a mystery as enigmatic or hotly debated as the cause for the disappearance of North America's largest known mammals. Scientists have worked to elucidate the cause of this extinction for over fifty years. Investigation of fungus that lived in megafaunal dung has led to a new timeline for the extinction, and the results were published in the November 2009 issue of Science.

Several major events occurred in North America during megafaunal population decline which have fueled speculation about the causes of extinction. Climate changes, over hunting by humans, and a purported cosmic impact are all posited as causing megafaunal extinction. While there is some support to link these events to extinction, there is not overwhelming evidence for any one hypothesis. Furthermore, parsing correlation from causation for events ten thousand years in the past is difficult, to say the least.

Traditionally, tracking the decline of these giant animal populations has relied on radiocarbon dating of fossils. Based on such evidence, most extinctions are dated somewhere between 13.3 to 12.9 thousand years ago. ... Gill's data indicate that megafauna populations began to decline earlier than previously expected: beginning at 14.8 thousand years ago. ...

Although Gill's paper refutes the Clovis blitzkrieg hypothesis, it leaves a window open for a gradual human over-hunting hypothesis, perhaps by pre-Clovis people. Haynes points out that as soon as modern humans arrive in locations all over the world, there is very quick collapse of megafauna populations. ...

A small cadre of scientists have recently proposed a cosmic impact 12.9 thousand years ago as the cause for megafaunal extinction. The impact hypothesis is inconsistent with Gill's research establishing an earlier date for population collapse beginning at 14.8 thousand years ago that declined over a longer period of time. ...

Most scientists studying the mystery of megafauna decline do not accept the newer cosmic impact hypothesis. Critics point to the absence of an appropriately aged impact crater. In addition, Donald Grayson, archeologist at the University of Washington, points out that not all of the big mammals died off at the same time. ...

Climate change is another potential culprit for megafaunal demise. At the end of the last ice age, in the Pleistocene, there was a series of warming and cooling cycles. The Bølling-Alerød warming period occurs at about the same time the megafaunal population began to decline according to Gill's work. The Younger Dryas, a colder era, lasted from 12.8 to 11.5 thousand years ago, close to the date of final megafaunal extinction. ...

Hybrid models that combine climate change and human hunting also have support in the scientific community. Megafauna may have been stressed by the various consequences of climate change, but human hunting, even mild hunting, may have pushed the massive mammals over the edge ...

The Code wrote:There are a lot of theories ...
http://www.physorg.com/news150097682.html ...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 133707.htm ...
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/baby-mammoth/ ...
http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j17_ ... _74-79.pdf

Chris Peterson wrote:

swainy wrote:It was not me who stated a near miss with a planet, It was me however, that said something is going to turn the heat down by way of sun light. because, an impact, a volcano, and a earth quake do not quick freeze millions of animals instantly. absolute zero would?.

There is no evidence of millions of animals being instantly frozen. This is an urban myth.

swainy wrote:It was not me who stated a near miss with a planet, It was me however, that said something is going to turn the heat down by way of sun light. because, an impact, a volcano, and a earth quake do not quick freeze millions of animals instantly. absolute zero would?.

"Mammoth remains have puzzled scientists and laymen for hundreds of years. Many explanations have been offered. One of the most popular hypotheses is that one eventful day, the hairy elephants were peacefully grazing on grass and buttercups when suddenly, tragedy struck, and millions of them froze instantly". http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/mammoth.asp

Chris Peterson wrote:

Swainy wrote:No, I got to take this on. A full stomach of food indicates plenty of food for the mammoth. which tells me what happened, happened in days. The question is, what was it? something did happen!. What?

What mammoth? These animals died all the time, and nobody says they all starved to death. The climate change associated with the Younger Dryas was fast, but it wasn't something that happened in a few days. It could have been associated with an impact, it could have been associated with a flood into the North Atlantic, or maybe something else. It sure wasn't a near miss with a planet!

Swainy wrote:No, I got to take this on. A full stomach of food indicates plenty of food for the mammoth. which tells me what happened, happened in days. The question is, what was it? something did happen!. What?

dougettinger wrote:The subject book mentions that the affects of a near-miss body caused affects on Earth known as the Younger Dryas and also the legendary castatrophic global flooding...

For me personally, it is very intriguing that the Earth's magnetic pole axis (almost) are displaced from the spin axis; and currently these poles are slowly converging.

New findings challenge a theory that a meteor explosion or impact thousands of years ago caused catastrophic fires over much of North America and Europe and triggered an abrupt global cooling period, called the Younger Dryas. Whereas proponents of the theory have offered "carbonaceous spherules" and nanodiamonds -- both of which they claimed were formed by intense heat -- as evidence of the impact, a new study concludes that those supposed clues are nothing more than fossilized balls of fungus, charcoal, and fecal pellets. Moreover, these naturally-occurring organic materials, some of which had likely been subjected to normal cycles of wildfires, date from a period of thousands of years both before and after the time that the Younger Dryas period began -- further suggesting that there was no sudden impact event.
...
The Younger Dryas impact event theory holds that a very large meteor struck Earth or exploded in the atmosphere about 12,900 years ago, causing a vast fire over most of North America, which contributed to extinctions of most of large animals on the continent and triggered a thousand-year-long cold period. While there is much previous evidence for the abrupt onset of a cooling period at that time, other researchers have theorized that the climatic change resulted from increased freshwater in the ocean, changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, or other causes unrelated to impacts.

The impact-theory proponents point to a charred layer of sediment filled with organic material that they say is unique to that period as evidence of such an event. These researchers described carbon spheres, carbon cylinders, and charcoal pieces that they conclude are melted and charred organic matter created in the intense heat of a widespread fire.

Scott and his fellow researchers analyzed sediment samples to determine the origins of the carbonaceous particles. After comparing the fossil particles with modern fungal ones exposed to low to moderate heat (less than 500 degrees Celsius, or 932 degrees Fahrenheit), Scott's group concludes that the particles are actually balls of fungal material and other ordinary organic particles, such as fecal pellets from insects, plant or fungal galls, and wood, some of which may have been exposed to regularly-occurring low-intensity wildfires.

• Geophysical Research Letters, doi: 10.1029/2010GL043345, in press (accepted 01 June 2010)

A team of scientists - led by Professor Andrew C Scott of the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London - have revealed that neither comet nor catastrophe were the cause for abrupt climate change some 12,900 years ago.

Theories of impacts and their influence on animal extinctions and climate change are receiving increasing attention both in the scientific and popular literature. Despite increasing evidence to dispute the theory, the idea that onset of the Younger Dryas (‘Big Freeze’) climate interval, mega-faunal extinctions, including mammoths, the demise of the North American Clovis culture, and a range of other effects, is due to a comet airburst and/or impact event has remained alive both through written and television media despite growing negative scientific evidence.

One key aspect of this claim centers on the origin of ‘carbonaceous spherules’ that purportedly formed during intense, impact-ignited wildfires. Theorists have used these ‘carbonaceous spherules’ as evidence for their comet impact-theories, but this new study concludes that those supposed clues are nothing more than fossilized balls of fungus, charcoal, and fecal pellets. These naturally-occurring organic materials also date from a period thousands of years both before and after the Younger Dryas period began, further suggesting that there was no sudden impact event.

Proponents of the idea that an exploding comet wiped out mammoths, giant sloths, and other megafauna 12,900 years ago have pointed to unusual organic debris in the soil from this period—debris, they say, that could have formed only in extreme wildfires raging across North America. But in a new study, a team argues that this debris is just fungal remains and bug poop.

In a paper to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, Andrew Scott of Royal Holloway, University of London in Egham, United Kingdom, and colleagues used four kinds of microscopy to take a closer look at the odd debris, known as carbonaceous spherules. The spherules have a honeycombed appearance and are a few hundred micrometers across. Scott spent 30 years studying charcoal from modern and ancient fires, but the spherules were too cryptic to bother with, at least until the mammoth-killer impact started showing up in TV documentaries.

Scott's team says it found a good match between carbonaceous spherules from 12,900 years ago and so-called fungal sclerotia (see figure). These are balls that fungi form during times of environmental stress and that can germinate if more favorable conditions return. When charred at relatively low temperatures, the resemblance increases. Some of the more elongate particles are "certainly fecal pellets, probably from termites," says Scott. And using a reflected-light technique to gauge the temperature at which charring occurred, the researchers conclude that the 12,900-year-old spherules were heated in low-intensity natural wildfires, if that. "There's certainly no evidence they're related to intense fire from a comet impact," says Scott. Part of the problem, he says, is that "there was nobody [among impact proponents] who ever worked on charcoal deposits, modern or ancient. If you're not familiar with the material, you can make mistakes."

Scott says the work should shift interest back to the idea that early Americans, climate change, or disease wiped out mammoths and their ilk.

Chris Peterson wrote:

dougettinger wrote:According to some of the legends, a large planet crossed the sky and had a near miss with Earth. Supposely, the magnetic field and gravity field of this near-miss planet combined with the perhaps stronger magnetic field of Earth during these times to affect and shift the Earth's crust by several degrees and possibly relocate Earth's magnetic dipole axis with respect to its spin axis. These explanations are mostly conjecture by the authors which they based on not only on legends, but also inductive reasoning for explaining geological and biological anamolies that have been studied, compiled, and dated back to 9500 BC.

I'd consider that nothing more than Velikovskian nonsense, totally unsupported by any evidence and totally untenable on any scientific grounds, even purely speculative reasoning. The idea is crazy.

Even the impact hypothesis associated with the Younger Dryas doesn't do more than assume an impact initiated a chain of events that was already primed by the existing environmental conditions. Here's a useful tool: if any theory mentions magnetic fields or the Earth's magnetic axis in terms of climatic events- especially cataclysmic ones- you are almost certainly looking at baloney.

dougettinger wrote:According to some of the legends, a large planet crossed the sky and had a near miss with Earth. Supposely, the magnetic field and gravity field of this near-miss planet combined with the perhaps stronger magnetic field of Earth during these times to affect and shift the Earth's crust by several degrees and possibly relocate Earth's magnetic dipole axis with respect to its spin axis. These explanations are mostly conjecture by the authors which they based on not only on legends, but also inductive reasoning for explaining geological and biological anamolies that have been studied, compiled, and dated back to 9500 BC.

Chris Peterson wrote:

dougettinger wrote:Two authors with academic credentials wrote Catacylsm ! Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B.C.. Does anybody in the forum have any strong opinions about any of its validity?

The date is associated with the Younger Dryas. It is certain that some interesting climatic variations occurred at that time, for reasons that remain uncertain (although there are several theories that are under investigation).

It is certain that there was no "Great Deluge"; that is, there was no global flooding. It is certain this had nothing to do with axial tilt. It is likely that this was mainly a phenomenon of the northern hemisphere. The possibility of a meteor impact (not yet strongly supported) is the only theory that could reasonably be called "cosmic".

Ann wrote:I have heard that what is now the Mediterranean was once dry land where people lived and livestock grazed. Then, very suddenly, the Atlantic Ocean broke through the Sound of Gibraltar, and the land inside was flooded extremely quickly. This event may have lived in memory and given rise to stories about a Great Flood.

Any comments?

Ann

Ann wrote:I have heard that what is now the Mediterranean was once dry land where people lived and livestock grazed. Then, very suddenly, the Atlantic Ocean broke through the Sound of Gibraltar, and the land inside was flooded extremely quickly. This event may have lived in memory and given rise to stories about a Great Flood.