Did the Oceans Cause the Extinction of the Woolly Mammoth?

[Andre]

The Paleao Police has arrested the http://www.ormenlange.com/no/about_ormen/key_features/storegga_slide/ this morning, accusing it of having caused the extinction of the woolly mammoth and other megafauna.

The spokesman said not to comment at the moment but a press release will follow later today. He murmered something about double marmelade sandwiches first.

The arrests ends a 206 year old quest that started with the discovery of the first full skeleton that was partly mummified at the discovery in 1799, the Adams Mammoth.

our special paleao crime reporter reports

 

[hypatia]

I hope Storegga had a good lawyer. Hmmm, double Marmelade, are you being bribed?

 

[Andre]

Yes no doubt he has a good laywer who will explore the opinion-of-the-majority-of the-autorotive-scientist-must-be-true fallacy without any doubt. A guilty declaration has also to imply that the jury acknowledges that the evidence clearly indicates that it's beloved ice age theory and global warming idea are "fatally flawed".

So it's very unlikely if he gets convicted at all.

Anyway some background. You really need to read this to understand how excellent's Storegga alibi was until now. If the largest (by orders of magnitude) continental slope failure that caused the Storegga slide happened only in 8200 before past and the mammoths were exterminated around 10,000 before past, then how could he possibly be guilty. That question has bothered us for months. The suspects all seemed to have an alibi. But that of the Storegga slide was compromised finally. A very clever scam.


BTW No doubt that the Storegga main event happened around 8200 Before past and no doubt that this is directly related to the Holocene cool event and alleged sudden melt pulses of glacial Lake Agassi that were actually effects from the resulting tsunami's. but how could that relate to killing the mammoth?

Read Maslin and think clathrate and never forget: "non calor sed umor"

More later.

 

[hypatia]

I can see how the movement of this much Earth could upset the gas hydrate stability zone.

 

[hypatia]

So really large amounts of methane{clathrate}rose to the surface, and de-stabilized the Earth causing{?} the Storegga Slide. But I take it it was much wider spread then we know. I mean, it was only in the last decade, we began to understand how much Methane{either frozen or trapped under the frozen} there really is.
How much would it take to make a global event? My guess, its not as much as we think it would half to be.

 

[Andre]

There you go. Exactly! The clathrate went first, destabilizing the sediments, which ultimately led to the collapse into the landslide. Jürgen Mienert found the smoking gun and gave us the vital golden lead that justified the accusation:

…..Paleo-bottom water temperatures show a relatively fast increase at approximately 12.5–10 ka (calendar years) following the Younger Dryas while stable warm water conditions have prevailed since then….

Despite sea level rise, this warm-water inflow caused a major reduction in the thickness of the gas hydrate stability zone along the upper slope of the mid-Norwegian margin….

Although the major phase of hydrate melting predates the Storegga slide event, dated at 8.2 ka (calendar years), reduced hydrate stability conditions could have facilitated or contributed to sub-marine slope failure

Jürgen Mienert et al (2005) Ocean warming and gas hydrate stability on the mid-Norwegian margin at the Storegga Slide Marine and Petroleum Geology Volume 22, Issues 1-2 , January-February 2005, Pages 233-244

We predict that narrowing down dating of "12.5–10 ka (calendar years)" will get us to 11,670 calendar years, the almost exact border of the Younger Dryas with the Preboreal

What would be the direct effect of an roiling sea loaded with methane with the size of a small country for hundreds, perhaps thousends of years? Releasing perhaps rough order of magnetude of 1000km^2 worth of clathrate that expands 150 fould or something like that.

- Forced unnatural ocean flows (check the effect of the bubble stream in the fish tank), hey didn't the Thermahaline current shut down in that period or behaved it erratic?
- Consequently, sea surface temperatures are not what they should be, sending warm surface water north and cool water south
- How about effective increase of water surface enhancing evaporation, including the splash water.

And of course the local strong enhanced concentration of methane as greenhouse gas.

So a climate change and overnight is likely and with all that forced evaporation going on I would vote for a dramatic large scale increase in precipitation.

 

[hypatia]

Not only could it of happened, it could happen again. I called a friend who knows more about the ocean currants than I, and he concurred{much like a el'nino} that water temps greatly increase storm activity, and flow of currants. So you could have massive hurricane like storms, in areas where they may not of occurred before.
He also mentioned the ocean floor is pox holed with craters from eruptions of clathrate, methane.

 

[Andre]

Yes it can happen again and it would have a far greater effect on climate than we think. And if Agassiz, who invented the ice ages in ~1833, had heard of clathrate, would he have had another explanation for ice ages? And how about Croll and milankovitch who invented the solar insolating forcing due to wobbles in the Earth cycles, if they only had known about it. And how about Arrhenius who greatly exagarated the CO2 greenhouse effect to further explain the ice ages? And Imbrie and Imbrie who thought that they had solved the mystery of the ice ages, tying oceanic isotopes to waxing and waning ice sheets.

If the clathrate was discovered first, how would the explanation of the ice ages be? When we are looking at http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/Vostokamp.jpg last 45,000 years, and we see the stunning correlation between layer height, (snow accumulation) and heavy hydrogen in the ice, then it would have been no problem to understand that those isotopes resemble the precipitation rate (modified by clathrate events). But unfortunately our thinking (tool)box was filled with ice ages, so we had to think temperature instead and ultimately global warming.

Yes it can happen again, but apparently, the real big ones like Storegga have a period of about 100,000 years if we assume that http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/dome-c.jpg of the last million years are global scale clathrate events. So after Storegga ~11,000 years ago, we have 89,000 more years of worrying ahead.

 

[Andre]

Anyway, to tie up loose ends, there is a lot more forensic evidence, like palynologic results, 13C isotope signatures, etc. Now, is there any jury out there who would require the presentation of the case?

 

[Charles Brough]

animal extinctions? why look for a scapegoat?

The idea that we humans caused the mass extinction of large mammals around the world over 10,000 years ago has had a hard time because social theorists like to look down on hunters as NRA fanatics and down on the human race as a line of rotting flesh carron eaters who only steal food from other predators!

Anyone remember how they went after Robert Audrey because he wrote a book about "The Killer Ape"? Audrey described us!

Social theorists like to picture us as creatures filled with love and who can be molded by Marxist theory into utopian egalitarian communes! They think that if they lie about our polygynous and hunting nature, they can bring "peace to the world." They like to see little boys play with baby dolls so they grow up to be nice and peaceful little angels.

It seems they really hate the human race!

Lets get real! The Cro-magnon man was a master at heating stone cores and chipping off all kinds of very sharp blades. He had a religion that united myrads of hunting-gathering groups so they could cooperate in hunting down and trapping whole herds of animals. They chased them over cliffs, attacked them in streams and swamps, they paniced them with brush and grass fires. They had all sorts of strategems to kill big game in large numbers. They out hunted both the saber tooth carnivore and the Neanderthal. They mulitiplied and hunted until they had succeeded in wiping out whole species. Then, of course, our hunting age society population crashed.

It was then that we began to take up agriculture to feed ourselves. The fun was over!

P.S., the only reason we men are sports fanatics is that we love to chase that leather encased object. We like to kick it, smash it with a bat, and drive it with drivers. That is the "game." What other possible reason could we men have for running around chasing balls?

charles
http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com

 

[hypatia]

Thank-you for these great posts Andre You have really done your homework, and have tied everything together very well.

 

[Andre]

Thanks and You're welcome Hypatia, Now I have to figure out how to convince the world.

Charles, interesting claims, have you any evidence to support that anthropocentric hypothesis? Since that is how justice works of course. No conviction without evidence beyond any reasonable doubt.

 

[Andre]

Now I have to figure out how to convince the world.

http://www.mammothsite.com/CongressProgramDRAFT.pdf

For starters, check out Saturday 24 September 2:15 hours but it will get hard to squeeze years worth of study into 15 minutes.

 

[Andre]

Preparing for the presentation I discovered that I could actually enter the article. Now remember, the Younger Dryas ended 11,670 years ago with a dramatic change in climate pertaining a large increase in precipitation, caused by clathrate destabilization of the Storegga slide area.

Now let's see how accurate that date was:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9Y-4FG2XBV-1&_user=10&_handle=V-WA-A-W-WD-MsSAYVW-UUB-U-AAWYAVBWDZ-AAWCDWVUDZ-BAVZZVADY-WD-U&_fmt=summary&_coverDate=01%2F01%2F2005&_rdoc=21&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%235911%232005%23999779998%23578986!&_cdi=5911&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=87c3ae56d3cdb75013b7e94143ac728b

The link works for me. If not I’ll tell how to get there.

Goto fig 3 and click to enlarge. See the dating of the large jump of the bottom water temperature?

The prosecution rests.

 

[Andre]

OK the case has been introduced formally to the jury as stated 2 posts ago.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/BB.ppt is the presentation for the World of Elephant congress in Mammoth Hot springs SD (note MS-office PPT XP version - animations may not function in older versions, let met know I can downgrade it)

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/Hot%20Springs.doc explaining the slides.

Enjoy

 

[hypatia]

I can't open the bpp ext.for the slides But thought the presentation was very good.

 

[matthyaouw]

I too can't see the slides (don't have any version of powerpoint at the moment) but I enjoyed reading the tetx. You make a good case.

 

[Andre]

OK I'll try and have somebody convert the Presentation. The presentation was a great success BTW.

 

[matthyaouw]

Good to hear it went well. I should be getting office installed soon so I look forward to seeing the slides.

 

[Andre]

Still working on the presentation. However in the mean time have fun with another alternative hypothesis about the mammoth extinction.

http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/nuclear.pdf

Although very shrewd, there are errors here. Who'll find them?

 

[nannoh]

Still working on the presentation. However in the mean time have fun with another alternative hypothesis about the mammoth extinction.

http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/nuclear.pdf

Although very shrewd, there are errors here. Who'll find them?

cosmic ray catastrophe, probably
caused by a supernova, occurred in
northeastern North America in the
late Pleistocene. Massive thermal
neutron irradiation radically altered
the radioactivity of terrestrial materials,
probably figured in the mass
extinction of Ice Age fauna, and
may account for plant mutations.

I fail to see how a Super Nova would specifically effect only the North of North America and not the rest of the planet. Is this a shrewd error I'm picking up on?

Although Firestone and Topping
find supporting evidence in such diverse
sources as marine sediments and Greenland
ice cores, they base their theory
principally on analysis of radioactive isoMarch
2001 9
topes of uranium, plutonium, and beryllium
in samples drawn from across North
America. (Isotope analysis is the stock in
trade at Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, Firestone’s home base.) They
find abnormal depletion of 235U and elevated
levels of 239Pu, both conditions
especially pronounced at sites near the
Great Lakes. The only phenomenon capable
of creating such imbalances, they
argue, is massive neutron bombardment,
probably from a supernova.

Another error is to concentrate their studies on a particular area without comparing the levels of the above mentioned elements thoroughly and encompassing the surface of this planet. Comparitive analysis would either hinder or help their theory, depending on the test results.

 

[Andre]

Fully agree.

Induced radioactivity is something like a product of a flux and time of exposure. So if you would have a supernova for some time to impose a flux, the Earth would continue to spin and expose a lot more area than just a single spot. The same would have to be true for a highly radioactive comet hit that may also have caused the Carolina Bays. So the geometry does not make sense.

Furthermore, there is indeed a strong spike of radioactive carbon at the beginning of the Younger Dryas but a cosmic radioactive event would also induce a 10Be spike and that's not there.

So testing that hypothesis encounters a lot of problems right from the start. But a nice try.

 

[nannoh]

Fully agree.

Induced radioactivity is something like a product of a flux and time of exposure. So if you would have a supernova for some time to impose a flux, the Earth would continue to spin and expose a lot more area than just a single spot. The same would have to be true for a highly radioactive comet hit that may also have caused the Carolina Bays. So the geometry does not make sense.

Furthermore, there is indeed a strong spike of radioactive carbon at the beginning of the Younger Dryas but a cosmic radioactive event would also induce a 10Be spike and that's not there.

So testing that hypothesis encounters a lot of problems right from the start. But a nice try.

Induced and increased exposure to radioactivity could be a result of something as simple as one of those (possibly) recurrent holes in the atmosphere's ozone. There's no study that proves holes in the ozone are strictly a result of abundant CFCs etc. Contrary to that, there's no study that proves holes in the ozone are a result of an overall atmospheric cycle. There is so much being said without the proper, thorough investigations to back up the assumptions!

 

[Andre]

That's brilliant. You have no idea.

 

[nannoh]

That's brilliant. You have no idea.

Let's just pick something that would explain inaccuracies in carbon-dating - a supernova for example?! Ha!

I actually didn't consider that the Earth's rotation would rule out an induction of radiation in one specific area of earth, namely - as the authors portend - in the North East of North America. The Earth does tend to rotate relatively west to east so if there were a supernova taking place in our relative polar region of space it is conceivable that the northern region of Earth would sustain a more intense dose of radiation during the event. However, the author's insistence that the exposure took place in the North East of North America makes very little sense.

What are the other, less fallible explanations for these aledged discrepancies and has anyone else noted similar inaccuracies in carbon dating from North Eastern North America?

 

[Andre]

No, this is too insane to discuss here. It would certainly be too toe curling counter intuitive, although there are similarities with the spinning history of Venus.

Think about this, suppose if it a was a ozone hole that allowed accumulating all that ambient radioactivity which might also explain the ridiculous young carbon dates of extinct mastodons; where are the ozone holes anyway? and why are they exactly there and nowhere else? So if there was an persisting ozone hole over Michigan, where would Michigan have to be? If Mohammed won't go to the mountain then the mountain has to go to Mohammed.

The problem with this outrageous impossible idea is that all the evidence is pointing towards it, like the Mammoths in a warm Siberia at the height of the last ice age.

Forget this post. I'm not insane. It's a crazy world.

 

[nannoh]

It's a crazy world.

Its a crazy world that's running hot and cold regardless of its magnificent mammoth's survival requirements.

 

[Andre]

For possible new members, who can't figure me out, this here is our core business.

Just a little update. After the presentation we were invited to write the article. However, it was intended for a paleontologic readers public, hence it was rather superfluous on technical details.

Another error that we made was not falsifying the previous paradigm before using it's evidence. Consequently it was rejected. So, in our rebuttal we showed that all those details were considered and current paradigms are indeed no longer tenable. Anyway the editor was convinced enough to invite us to rewrite the paper once more including the rebuttals. That paper is halfway now.

Meanwhile we have also been invited to write a short popular version of the extinction story for a UK magazin. We did that but the first version was too technical, where "isotope's" are a difficult word. So that was rewritten as well and it will probably be published somewhere early next year. So we keep moritorium on that. The first, more difficult version, is available however. PM me your E-mail address, if you want a copy.

 

[Ouabache]

OK the case has been introduced formally to the jury as stated 2 posts ago.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/BB.ppt is the presentation for the World of Elephant congress in Mammoth Hot springs SD (note MS-office PPT XP version - animations may not function in older versions, let met know I can downgrade it)

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/Hot%20Springs.doc explaining the slides.

Enjoy

Andre, I wonder if you may have saved a copy of the World of Elephant Congress ppt presentation. It seems the links to the original presentation, are no longer valid.

 

[Andre]

Andre, I wonder if you may have saved a copy of the World of Elephant Congress ppt presentation. It seems the links to the original presentation, are no longer valid.

Go here for the presentation: http://rapidshare.com/files/166891372/BB.ppt
and here for the speaking notes: http://rapidshare.com/files/166892802/Hot_Springs.doc

Click on free user. You may have to wait several seconds before dowloading.


I know now that proposed hypothesis here is merely a link in a large chain of not understood events. The chronology fits but the causality is yet to be found out.

 

[Ouabache]

Thanks Andre, I can view your presentation in animation too..
I am learning new things here..

 

[Andre]

Thanks Andre, I can view your presentation in animation too..
I am learning new things here..

You're welcome and there is plenty more where this is coming from. For instance the methane hydrate events in the Nordic seas are in pace with the 100,000 years cycle as seen in the Antarctic ice cores, See http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9Y-4GY89XG-3&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2005&_alid=831212007&_rdoc=3&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5911&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=7&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=68346cb2f38caf58685799820c9b117f.

But similar things happened at the mouth of the Amazon: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-4N2D64D-2&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2007&_alid=831217205&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5923&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=7&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=b01dfbf6718cccf4065ce8b81db28fbf.

Apparantly the oceans went rogue at times, causing destabilisation of methane hydrate and also http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1138679v1 into the atrmosphere, but why and how and what is cause and what is effect?

I'm sure they are on to something, but what? It should be clear though that -contrary the assessment of the IPCC- we are nowhere near understanding the influence of the oceans on paleo climate