The Mystery of the "Frozen Mammoths"

[Yorzhik]

Woolly Mammoths lived in the frozen Arctic

eh, no way. Temperate zone more likely, but not Arctic. The Arctic weather was a whole new thing to them, to say the least!

 

[bob b]

I can't help wondering what frozen rhinoceroses were doing in the same area where frozen mammoths are also found above the arctic circle in northern Siberia.

 

[BillyBob]

I can't help wondering what frozen rhinoceroses were doing in the same area where frozen mammoths are also found above the arctic circle in northern Siberia.

It demonstrates that there was plenty of food and that the Arctic was a cold climate.

 

[BillyBob]

eh, no way. Temperate zone more likely, but not Arctic. The Arctic weather was a whole new thing to them, to say the least!

Yet they survived there for tens of thousands of years and the USGS has confirmed the cold climate of the Ice Age Arctic as I have already shown in previous posts.

 

[bob b]

It demonstrates that there was plenty of food and that the Arctic was a cold climate.

One out of two ain't bad.

In baseball, that is.

 

[djconklin]

>the amazing depth (in some spots exceeding 450 meters) of the frozen ground (permafrost) in many areas of the arctic.

Deeper than that! Some places in Siberia are almost a mile deep! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permafrost

 

[bob b]

>the amazing depth (in some spots exceeding 450 meters) of the frozen ground (permafrost) in many areas of the arctic.

Deeper than that! Some places in Siberia are almost a mile deep! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permafrost

Thanks for the link.

I did notice on their chart (which did not include assumptions used in the calculations) that the time seemed to be going up exponentially with depth. Perhaps someone here could plot it out further to see if a permafrost depth of a mile would take more time than the age of the Earth.

 

[Johnny]

I did notice on their chart (which did not include assumptions used in the calculations) that the time seemed to be going up exponentially with depth. Perhaps someone here could plot it out further to see if a permafrost depth of a mile would take more time than the age of the Earth.

Just from looking at it, it appears so.

 

[BillyBob]

Thanks for the link.

I did notice on their chart (which did not include assumptions used in the calculations) that the time seemed to be going up exponentially with depth. Perhaps someone here could plot it out further to see if a permafrost depth of a mile would take more time than the age of the Earth.

More than 4.5 billion years?

 

[Lon]

I found an interesting article:

http://users.ipfw.edu/conradd/Mammoth-errors 2004 not corrected.doc



see also-
Resurrecting the extinct Mammoth:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04/0408_050408_woollymammoth.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GER/is_2001_Spring/ai_74925447

http://www.wanfangdata.com.cn/qikan/periodical.Articles/zrkxjz-e/zrkx2006/0604/060408.htm

 

[BillyBob]

I found an interesting article:

http://users.ipfw.edu/conradd/Mammoth-errors 2004 not corrected.doc

So you doubt that Woolly Mammoths lived in the Arctic?
Do you also doubt that they lived during the last Ice Age?
Do you doubt there even was an Ice Age?

Mammoth DNA is similar [but not identical] to elephant DNA because they share common ancestry, but that doersn't mean they were similar enough to discount the fact that Woollies survived in a colder environment than 'regular' elephants are capable of.

For example, look at the dogs used to pull sleds around in the arctic [Husky and Malamute], they survive in a cold environment where say a 'Pug' would quickly freeze to death yet their DNA is indistiguishable from each other.

The fact that Mammoth DNA is noticably different from 'regular' elephant DNA means they were even more specialized and distinct from each other than Malamutes are from Pugs.

 

[BillyBob]

see also-
Resurrecting the extinct Mammoth:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/04/0408_050408_woollymammoth.html

From your article:

Ice Age Giants

Mammoths first appeared in Africa about four million years ago, then migrated north and dispersed widely across Europe and Asia.

At first a fairly generalized elephant species, mammoths evolved into several specialized species adapted to their environments. The hardy woolly mammoths, for instance, thrived in the cold of Ice Age Siberia.

In carvings and cave paintings, Ice Age humans immortalized the giant beasts, which stood about 11 feet (3.4 meters) tall at the shoulder and weighed about seven tons.

 

[BillyBob]

If DNA is used for comparison it appears that Woolly Mammoths are about as similar to modern elephants as humans are to chimps. :BillyBob:




"A mammoth was chosen for the study, in part, because of its close evolutionary relationship to the African elephant, whose nuclear DNA sequence has been made publicly available by the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA). Using comparisons with elephant DNA, the researchers identified 13-million base pairs as being nuclear DNA from the mammoth, which they showed to be 98.5 percent identical to nuclear DNA from an African elephant."

cite




"The WSU research team compared 97 functional genes in six different species: humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, old world monkeys, and mice. Based on genetic mutation tracking rates, the scientists constructed an evolutionary tree that measured the degree of relatedness among the six species. Chimpanzees and humans were the most closely related, sharing 99.4 percent identity at nonsynonymous (functionally important) sites and 98.4 percent at synonymous sites (functionally much less important)."

cite

 

[bob b]

Human-chimp Difference May Be Bigger
December 20, 2006 Science Daily — Approximately 6 percent of human and chimp genes are unique to those species, report scientists from Indiana University Bloomington and three other institutions. The new estimate, reported in the inaugural issue of Public Library of Science ONE (Dec. 2006), takes into account something other measures of genetic difference do not -- the genes that aren't there.

That isn't to say the commonly reported 1.5 percent nucleotide-by-nucleotide difference between humans and chimps is wrong, said IUB computational biologist Matthew Hahn, who led the research. IUB postdoctoral researcher Jeffery Demuth is the paper's lead author.

"Both estimates are correct in their own way," Hahn said. "It depends on what you're asking. There isn't a single, standard estimate of variation that incorporates all the ways humans, chimps and other animals can be genetically different from each other."

------

This is the latest, but wait a minute. The next report might flip-flop again.

 

[Lon]

So you doubt that Woolly Mammoths lived in the Arctic?
Do you also doubt that they lived during the last Ice Age?
Do you doubt there even was an Ice Age?

I just find the data and supported evidence from every side of this issue interesting and appreciate the dilemmas. I couldn't say what I believe about this particular data with any great conclusiveness or impiracle statement.

 

[bob b]

For example, look at the dogs used to pull sleds around in the arctic [Husky and Malamute], they survive in a cold environment where say a 'Pug' would quickly freeze to death yet their DNA is indistiguishable from each other.

I wasn't aware that Malamute and Pug DNA had been sequenced yet. Do you have a scientific reference?

I have owned two Malamutes and have seen Pugs. I seriously doubt that "their DNA is indistiguishable from each other". If that were the case why would they grow up to be so different?

-----

Harvard University Gazette December 8, 2005
Scientists at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT have sequenced the domestic dog's DNA, thanks to the blood of a boxer named Tasha.
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/12.08/01-doggene.html

 

[aharvey]

Thanks for the link.

I did notice on their chart (which did not include assumptions used in the calculations) that the time seemed to be going up exponentially with depth. Perhaps someone here could plot it out further to see if a permafrost depth of a mile would take more time than the age of the Earth.

Actually, the article included a link to the actual article, so you're free to see exactly how this was estimated. The math's delightful. What is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but is discussed in the paper itself, is that these calculations are based on current (as in interglacial, lots warmer than an Ice Age) climatic conditions. These numbers are overestimates to the extent that it was colder in the past, exponentially so.

 

[Johnny]

I thought of a whole list of adjectives to describe the maths in that paper, but delightful was not one of them

 

[bob b]

Actually, the article included a link to the actual article, so you're free to see exactly how this was estimated. The math's delightful. What is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but is discussed in the paper itself, is that these calculations are based on current (as in interglacial, lots warmer than an Ice Age) climatic conditions. These numbers are overestimates to the extent that it was colder in the past, exponentially so.

One ounce of actual measurement is frequently worth a ton of mathematical equations. That has certainly been true in the exploration of the planets where data from probes reveal "surprises" more frequently than adherence to theoretical models.

What should be done in this case to verify theoretical equations, which frequently only estimate the values of variables and constants, is to instrument the bottom of bore holes so as to determine what is going on at the bottom of the deepest permafrost, such as those found to be close to a mile deep, as well as the permafrost found below the bottom of the ocean. My belief is that this monitoring over time will show that the deep permafrost is melting from the bottom up, due to the heat rising from the Earth's core, and the only reason the permafrost is still so deep is that the event which caused the deep layers in the first place happened relatively recently. (Prediction #1)

My experience with heat transfer modeling tells me that people are "nuts" if they think that cold air temperatures alone can freeze the ground to depths close to a mile, regardless of how much time might have been available.

 

[aharvey]

One ounce of actual measurement is frequently worth a ton of mathematical equations. That has certainly been true in the exploration of the planets where data from probes reveal "surprises" more frequently than adherence to theoretical models.

What should be done in this case to verify theoretical equations, which frequently only estimate the values of variables and constants, is to instrument the bottom of bore holes so as to determine what is going on at the bottom of the deepest permafrost, such as those found to be close to a mile deep, as well as the permafrost found below the bottom of the ocean. My belief is that this monitoring over time will show that the deep permafrost is melting from the bottom up, due to the heat rising from the Earth's core, and the only reason the permafrost is still so deep is that the event which caused the deep layers in the first place happened relatively recently. (Prediction #1)

You might want to look into the primary literature a bit more, bob. Geothermal gradients, permafrost anomalies in Poland and elsewhere, that sort of thing. People do actually work in the field on this stuff.

My experience with heat transfer modeling tells me that people are "nuts" if they think that cold air temperatures alone can freeze the ground to depths close to a mile, regardless of how much time might have been available.

Let's see, did this "heat transfer modeling" involve "a ton of mathematical equations"? Did you spend lots of time out in the Arctic or Antarctic dealing with the "cold air temperatures"? I'm curious if you reject the concept and theory involving geothermal gradients, and what experience you have that would lead to such a conclusion.