The Enigma of the Ice-Age

1. Neither those who believe in Creation nor those who believe in Evolution deny that there has been an Ice-Age, but opinions differ sharply as to when it occurred, how it occurred and if there had been more than one. There have been many theories but none have yet adequately explained all the data. In the first place, for there to have been an Ice-Age at all means that global conditions on earth would need to have been warm enough on the one hand to have provided all the moisture by evaporation and at the same time cool enough to prevent melting and evaporation once that moisture had precipitated as snow. Clearly, such a combination of circumstances were so unique that there could only have been one Ice-Age. The Christian should begin his investigation with Scripture and conclude that the Genesis Flood was global. The logic here is based upon Genesis 9:11 where Noah left the ark, made a sacrifice then God promised never to destroy the earth again by water. He then gave mankind the rainbow as His covenant sign. Obviously, there have been many local floods throughout history and thus unless God is a liar, He must have been referring to the Genesis Flood as a global flood. According to the Septuagint text, from the time of Creation to the Flood was 1656 years or, according to the Masoretic text, just over 2000 years , nevertheless, the earth was likely fully populated at this time. Moreover, the conditions upon earth were said to have been "very good" indicating perhaps a sub-tropical paradise. At the time of the Flood, the "fountains of the great deep broke up" pouring out hot juvenal water into the oceans. This would raise the ocean temperature by a few degrees, not more or many fish species would die. It is just possible that the "waters above" were a ring of ice particles, and this ring collapsed moderating the ocean temperature. The higher ocean temperature would cause coral growth to increase and greatly increase the rate of water evaporation at the surface. It has been suggested that the Flood was triggered by a fly-by of a large asteroid which caused the earth to wobble slightly giving rise to much volcanic activity. From such activity today we know that ash is shot high into the atmosphere cutting off sunlight for a long time. Mt. Tambora, Indonesia, exploded in 1815 while the following year, 1816, the world saw no summer, little food and world-wide starvation.

2. Modern geology began in the late 1700's with doubts about the Genesis Flood being global. The successive layers of strata were observed to contain fossils of different creatures and, adopting the old Greek idea of the scalar natura, it was believed that each stratum was the result of an inundation or transgression by the sea, flooding the land and preserving within the sediments those creatures that were living at that particular time in earth's history. It was believed that the land sank below the sea level for each transgression to occur, stayed a sufficient time to build up the sediment then rose again. Between 1820 and 1840 the geological history of the earth was expanded from thousands of years as suggested by Scripture, to multiple millions of years. This increased geological time was exactly what was so essential for Charles Darwin who was at that time working on his theory of evolution. Darwin published his theory in 1859.

3. Professor Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) was a Swiss naturalist and familiar with glaciers. He emigrated to North America and recognized the evidences of former glaciation: tillites or rocks scattered about in fields (drift) and striations or scratch marks left on bed rocks by hard particles of rock entrapped within slowly moving ice. In addition, there were occasional erratics or large rocks far removed from their source and abandoned by the melting ice. In former times, such evidences had been attributed to rapidly moving flood water over a short period of time. Now they were interpreted as having been produced by slow moving ice over a long period of time. Thus in 1840, Agassiz's suggestion of an Ice-Age had the immediate effect of negating the belief in Noah and the Genesis Flood. There has undoubtedly been an Ice-Age and this probably occurred over a period of several hundred years following the Genesis Flood but the Ice-Age may not have been nearly as extensive as we have been led to believe.

4. Among the dozens of theories offered to explain the Ice-Age, some of the most popular include a slow variation of radiant energy from the sun, obliquity of the earth's orbit about the sun (the Milankovitch Theory) and a wobble in the earth's spin as seen in the precession phenomenon. It is most probable that the earth has always been inclined to the ecliptic at 23.5 degrees since this gives us the seasons spoken of in Genesis 1:14 while the evidence that the Egyptian temples were re-oriented several times strongly suggests that the wobble began perhaps at the time of the Flood and has since dampened out. One of the reasons that evolutionists speak about four Ice-Ages, or twenty according to the textbook, is that there is no known mechanism for having the Continental land surfaces sink and rise below sea level. It is argued that ice was built up to over a mile in thickness and provided sufficient weight to cause the land to sink. Once beneath the sea, the ice melted allowing sediment deposition and eventual rebounding of the land surface (isostasy). Suggesting such a process for each of the 28 strata led to multiple Ice-Ages but it is generally recognized today that the theory has far too many difficulties. The current wisdom is that there have been two Ice-Ages: the first is called the Pleistocene era that lasted about a million years then warming began in what is called the Sangamon period and this was followed by the second Ice-Age. Warming began again about 20,000 years ago; this last warming period is called the Holocene. In historical times most of the world's glaciers have been retreating.

5. Climatologist, Michael Oard, has proposed what is possibly the most reasonable explanation for a single Ice-Age, identified with the Pleistocene, and which followed the Genesis Flood. In the first place, the world ocean temperature was raised a few degrees by the waters of the "fountains of the great deep." This would have greatly increased the rate of evaporation and thus provided the moisture for the snowfall. Secondly, dust in the upper atmosphere caused by volcanic activity during and after the Flood would have reduced the Summer temperature in the central land mass of each continent by as much as 15 degrees; moreover, the winter snows did not melt but rather compacted building up over the years. The land areas adjacent to the oceans however, were warmed by the warmer ocean producing sub-tropical to temperate conditions in these regions which included the entire Arctic Circle. At this point there was no ice cap over the North pole while the circulation of these warm waters would explain the extensive coral beds beneath the present day ice fields. The evaporated ocean water now locked up as glaciers, would lower the ocean level by several hundred feet exposing land bridges at the Bering Straits as well as providing a land route to Australia. Upon leaving the ark at Mt. Ararat, the animals multiplied and migrated via these warm land routes, some of them finding their way to the lush pastures that have since become the Arctic Circle. In the meantime, the dust in the upper atmosphere began to settle, summers became warmer and ocean levels began to rise cutting off the land bridges. The fresh water from melting glaciers flowed predominantly north to the Arctic Sea as do most rivers in Canada and Siberia today. Fresh water floats on salt water, freezes at a higher temperature and began to freeze in the subsequent northern winter darkness. This was the beginning of the Arctic ice cap. The formation of ice was intensified by the albedo effect whereby the summer sunlight was reflected by the ice so that once this process began the conditions then remained very cold throughout the year. The melting glaciers brought about flash floods carrying vegetation and animals to be buried off the coast of the Arctic shores while the harsh climate caused the tree-line to migrate approximately 2000 miles further south.

6. In 1986 a "frozen forest" of tree stumps was discovered on Axel Heiberg Island, Canada's most northerly point of land. The tree trunks and branches with blackened leaves were horizontal and easily recognized to be of the meta sequoia variety; some had 18 inch diameter trunks while the wood was still fresh and all this in growth positions 2000 miles above the present tree line! Moreover, the unmineralized bones of alligators, camels, lions, bears and mammoths were found in heaped profusion beneath the fallen trees. The forest and remains are officially claimed to be 40 million years old however, samples of the wood were subjected to the Carbon 14 test and found to date at 41,000 years! This was not widely publicized.

7. Siberian trappers have been finding the bones of animals and particularly the bones and tusks of the mammoth (Mammoth imperator) since the time of the Roman Empire and to this day there is still a steady trade with auction houses dealing with hundreds of tusks every year. Normally, these discoveries consist of a jumble of bones but in 1901, just above the Arctic Circle on the banks of the Beresovka River, a complete mammoth with fur, skin, flesh and internal organs was discovered allowing scientists to make a complete examination. The creature did not die of starvation but its mouth and stomach were full of buttercups and sedges in seed thus placing the time of death in August. The creature had a broken back leg and an erect genital indicating that it died of suffocation, probably frozen lungs. Interestingly, the hide was covered in thick hair but the skin had no sebaceous glands to provide oil to waterproof the coat. Northern foxes and mammals that live in the harsh Arctic regions all have the essential oil glands otherwise they would freeze and die when their fur became wet. This is further evidence that the Arctic regions were at one time temperate while for the mammoths and all the other animals to have inhabited this land there must have been sufficient food. Throughout most of this century reconstruction of the mammoth showed the creature, much larger than the elephant, digging about in snow-laden ground for a morsel of grass. Elephants eat about 200 pounds of grass per day! Modern reconstruction now show the mammoths living in lush pastures. It is claimed that the mammoth became extinct 10,000 years ago. This figure was derived from the fact that cave paintings at La Cambarelles, France, show that the mammoth must have been contemporaneous with intelligent man. We can be sure that had these paintings not been discovered and authenticated, we would have been told that the mammoth became extinct 40 million years ago.

8. Ancient maps such as the Pirie Reis map, have been discovered that show Antarctica as an ice-free landmass; this landmass has since been confirmed by radar mapping. Another map shows Greenland as three separate islands and, once again, this has been confirmed by radar maps. These early maps raise the possibility that they are copies of maps made shortly after the Genesis Flood.