09. Concluding Remarks

CHAPTER 9
Concluding Remarks

Summary

Over 60 theories of the ice age have been offered in the past, and all have serious deficiencies, including the currently popular astronomical theory. Their major problem is that northern North America and northern Europe possess abundant surface evidence of former ice sheets, yet the present climate cannot glaciate these regions. The requirements for glaciation are a combination of much colder summers and higher snowfall. According to a realistic climate simulation over a snow cover, at least 10-to-12°C summer cooling and twice the snowfall are needed just to glaciate northeast Canada (Williams, 1979). Several solutions to these stringent requirements have been proposed, but these solutions are largely speculation. Many climate simulations have indicated that ice ages can develop easily, with only a small change in higher latitude summer radiation (as proposed by the astronomical theory). But these climate simulations are crude, and glaciation is specified as a response to unrealistic variables. The only possible way for solving the mystery of the ice age is to develop a new approach, within which to interpret geological and climatological data. It is the purpose of this monograph to make available a theory-a model-a new development, which provides a satisfactory explanation. This new approach is radically different from those which have been utilized for more than 100 years. It is paramount to a paradigm shift in historical science (Kuhn, 1970). The proposed mechanism is catastrophic, and is not based on the uniformitarian principle. Specifically, the ice age is treated as a consequence of the Genesis Flood, which disrupted the climate to such a degree that an ice age developed immediately afterwards. The Genesis Flood has never been proved to be a fable. It has only been assumed so, by some men of science, over the past 200 years or more. There is ample evidence that a gigantic flood once inundated the earth. For example, many sedimentary layers were laid down quickly by huge, powerful currents, with little or no sign of erosion between layers. Well over 100 flood traditions, in cultures from all over the world add support. The Bible clearly specifies that the Flood was global-not regional, or local. The Genesis Flood provides the initial conditions for the ice age. Since the Flood was associated with extensive volcanism, a vast shroud of volcanic dust and aerosols would have remained in the atmosphere for several years afterwards. Water for the Flood erupted from below the ground, in the “fountain of the great deep.” The hot water from the deep would mix with the pre-Flood ocean, which itself probably was relatively warm compared to today. The tremendous earth upheavals associated with the fountains of the deep, and the draining of the Flood waters, would have mixed the ocean water. Consequently, the ocean would likely have been universally warm from pole to pole, and from top to bottom, at the end of the Flood.

Cooling mechanisms caused by the Flood, in combination with a universally warm ocean, would result in a snowblitz, or a rapid ice age. Volcanic dust and aerosols would provide the main summer cooling over the mid and high-latitude continents, by reflecting a relatively large percentage of the summer sunshine back to space. Once a permanent snow cover becomes established, even more solar radiation is reflected back, reinforcing summer cooling caused by volcanism. Snow-cover cooling is especially effective over barren ground, which would have been characteristic immediately after the Flood. More cloudiness, caused by higher mid and high-latitude moisture, would most likely reinforce the cooler summers. Carbon dioxide, due to volcanism and the decay of vegetation, would have been very high right after the Flood, countering the cooling mechanisms somewhat, but it would have decreased rapidly as the ice age progressed, providing a supplementary cooling mechanism later on as the other cooling mechanisms waned. The above cooling mechanisms would have acted mainly on land-the oceans would have been least affected. The combination of cold land and warm oceans would have caused the main storm tracks to lie parallel to the east coasts of Asia and North America. These storm tracks would be more-or-less stationary throughout the year. Storm after storm would develop and drop most of its moisture over the colder land. Additionally, the strongest evaporation from the warm ocean would have occurred near the continents, to provide the copious moisture needed for the ice age. Northeastern North America and East Antarctica would be especially favored to develop an ice sheet immediately after the Flood. The mountain of Scandinavia, Greenland, West Antarctica, and western North America, would also have been glaciated at the beginning. However, many areas close to the warm ocean, like the British Isles and the lowlands of northwestern Europe, would be too warm for glaciers at the beginning. Due to at least three factors, the lowlands of eastern Asia and Alaska would have escaped glaciation. For the ice age to progress, sustained cooling of the mid and high-latitude continents is required. The volcanic dust and aerosols from the Flood would have settled out in a few years, but abundant volcanism, at a much higher rate than we have observed in the recent 200 years, would continue the volcanic cooling. A large array of geological evidence attests to these large ice-age eruptions. The other cooling mechanisms would have continued in operation. The ocean adjacent to the developing ice sheets, and in the path of storms, would continue warm, due to a vigorous horizontal and vertical ocean circulation. As the water was cooled by evaporation and by contact with cold continental air, it would become more dense, and sink, being replaced by warmer water from deeper in the ocean. Ocean currents, set up along the east coasts of Asia and North America would continually transport warmer water northward. As the deeper ocean cooled, the ocean surface and atmosphere at mid and high latitude would slowly cool, as the ice age progressed and the ice sheets expanded. Mountain icecaps, in many areas, would coalesce and spread to lower elevations. The unique post-Flood climate would explain a number of long-standing mysteries during the ice age. For instance, a multitude of large lakes filled enclosed basins in now arid or semi-arid regions of the earth. Great Salt Lake was 285 meters deeper, and 17 times the size. Six times more precipitation than in today’s climate is needed to account for this lake (Smith and Street-Perrott, 1983). The actual filling of these pluvial lakes was likely due to the Genesis Flood. But there is evidence that they were partially maintained during the ice age. This would be accounted for by at least three times the current precipitation during the post-Flood ice age. Uniformitarian ice age theories usually specify very dry weather during the ice age.

One uniformitarian ice-age puzzle that has lasted for 200 years, is the observation that cold tolerant animals, like the reindeer, lived with warm tolerant animals, like the hippopotamus. The latter even migrated into northern England, France, and Germany during the ice age. A post-Flood ice age can account for this unique distribution of animals, since winters would be mild, and summers cool. And, also, northwest Europe would have been relatively warm at first because of the surrounding warm ocean and the generally westerly onshore flow of air. Land bridges, for instance, across the Bering Strait and the English Channel, would have aided rapid animal dispersion after the Flood. The climate of Siberia and Alaska would have been mild during the ice age. The Arctic Ocean not only was not covered by sea ice, but it also was relatively warm during the ice age. Temperatures over the surrounding continents would have been significantly warmer than at present as a result (Newson, 1973). The warm North Atlantic and North Pacific also would have contributed to the warmth in these regions, and precipitation would have been higher. Consequently, the woolly mammoth and many other types of animals would have found a suitable home, with adequate food, in Siberia and Alaska.

Due to the unique post-Flood climate, glacial maximum is reached very rapidly-in about 500 years. This figure is based on the length of time the controlling conditions likely operated. The main variable determining this time span is the ocean warmth, which made copious moisture available. Once the ocean cooled to some threshold temperature, the supply of moisture would critically decline, and deglaciation would begin. In Chapter 5, the time needed to cool the ocean was found from the oceanic and atmospheric heat-balance equations applied to the post-Flood climate. Speculation is inherent in such an estimate. As a result, maximum and minimum estimates of the most important variables were used. The initial average ocean temperature following the Flood was assumed to be 30°C, and the threshold temperature, at maximum glaciation, was estimated to be 10°C. The time to reach maximum glaciation ranged from 174 to 1,765 years-very short, compared to uniformitarian estimates. Both these figures are extremes. The best estimate is probably about 500 years. The available moisture for an ice age not only comes from the warm mid and high-latitude oceans, but also from the poleward transport of water vapor from lower latitudes by the atmospheric circulation. The former was estimated from the heat balance equation of the ocean. The latter was smaller, and found by using the present estimate of poleward transport and adapting it to the post-Flood climate. A maximum and minimum amount of available moisture for the entire ice age was estimated. The next step was to determine how much of this moisture fell on the developing ice sheets. Maximum and minimum areal distributions of the available precipitation were calculated. Ice-depth ranged from 515 meters to 906 meters for the Northern Hemispheric ice sheets, and from 726 meters to 1,673 meters for Antarctica. The best estimate for the average ice depth over the Northern Hemisphere was found to be about 700 meters, and over the Southern Hemisphere, about 1,200 meters.

These numbers are significantly less than uniformitarian estimates, but they are more soundly based than are the uniformitarian estimates. The main method of estimating ice thickness has been by simply assuming that past ice sheets were similar to the Antarctic ice sheet. But a large amount of evidence from the interior and the margin of the Laurentide ice sheet, indicates it actually was comparatively thin. Other methods of estimating ice sheet thickness are faulty, and are often based on circular reasoning.

During deglaciation, summers over mid and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere would be warm, but winters would become very cold. The colder winters were due to the continued cooling of the atmosphere by the ice sheets. The cold climate would have caused sea ice to develop on the Arctic Ocean. Sea ice would also have become more extensive than it is today in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans. Due to the cooler temperatures and the greater extent of sea ice, the atmosphere would also become drier than at present. The storm tracks would be displaced southward, with a secondary storm track just south of the ice sheets. Dry, windy storms would track south of the ice sheets, and would often cause blowing dust that would result in extensive sand and loess sheets.

Even in such a climate, the ice sheets would melt in summer. Over a snow cover, and with 10°C colder summer temperatures along the periphery than at present, the energy-balance equation indicates that the ice sheet would melt rapidly-in less than 100 years, at the periphery. The interior would likely melt in under 200 years. The melting rates calculated in this book are close to those observed in the present climate. Consequently, the total time for a post-Flood ice age is only about 700 years. The rapidly melting ice sheets would cause rivers to overflow and become choked with sediment. Terraces would be cut into deep fills of river-valley alluvium. Large river meanders, close to the ice sheet edge, attest to a large runoff. Some of these geomorphic features formed at the end of the Flood, but the ice age would surely add its imprint. At this time, the cold, dry climate would stress the abundant megafauna. Many animals would become extinct-with the assistance of man, the hunter, in some cases. The extinction of the megafauna at the end of the ice age is just one of many mysteries unexplainable by uniformitarian assumptions. The woolly mammoth is one of the extinct megafauna. The disappearance of a million or more of them in Siberia and Alaska is especially intriguing. Since only a small percentage of mammoths had soft parts frozen, and most of the other animals managed to flee, the catastrophe seems to be more a result of a gradual, but permanent cooling of the climate. Partially digested stomach contents, in one or two carcasses, is the basis for a regional quick-freeze theory. But since other indicators show the regional freeze was gradual, there probably is a local explanation for the condition of these stomach contents.

Some readers may think the number of glaciations has been firmly established by science. An examination of the history of the multiple-glaciation concept shows that the number has never been established. The glacial sediments are so complex that a case can be made for anywhere from one-to-six or more separate glaciations. Four ice ages were agreed upon in the early 20th century, primarily on the basis of investigations in the Swiss Alps. During the last two decades, glaciologists have come to believe 20 or 30 ice ages developed and dissipated in succession. The fourfold scheme that was worked out in the Alps is now considered to be inadequate, and to have many serious errors. For over 60 years, all research was fitted into the alpine scheme, while it held sway over scientific thinking. This is an example of the reinforcement syndrome that continues to operate strongly in the geological sciences.

Abundant evidence indicates that one ice age is much more probable than many. A major reason for this is that the very radical requirements for one ice age (Williams, 1979) are not likely to be repeated. The ice-age sediments have not been transported far, strongly suggesting only one, thin ice sheet. Combining this evidence with the thin till cover, especially over interior regions, and with the observation that nearly all the till was deposited during the “last” ice age, one ice age is more reasonable. Moreover, two favorable areas along the periphery, called driftless areas, were never glaciated. This is more in line with one, thin ice sheet, than with 20 or more thick ice sheets. Since practically all the ice-age fossils are found south of the former ice sheets, and most major extinctions followed only the “last” ice age, there most likely never were interglacial periods.

Evidence for multiple glaciations comes from the periphery of the ice sheets-evidence such as fossils and ancient soils found between sheets of till. This evidence actually is rare. The properties of ancient soils are used to date various ice ages, but too many poorly known variables make such classification speculative. Just recognizing an ancient soil, is difficult. The evidence for multiple ice ages can be adequately explained by one dynamic ice age. Just like modern glaciers, one ice sheet would advance, retreat, and surge, in accord with variations in climate. Post-Flood ice sheets would move rapidly at the periphery, and slowly, in the interior. Rapid oscillations would cause stacked till sheets, with non-glacial deposits sandwiched between. Even organic remains can be engulfed in this way. Heavy precipitation south of the ice sheet could develop clay-like “soils” in a short time, and high erosion can give the terrain an old appearance. The ice age ended within the last several millennia. The basis for this qualitative assessment is the freshness of most glacial features. More quantitative estimates, like those based on the rate of recession of Niagara Falls, have unfortunate complications, but nevertheless indicate a short time-especially when the rapid melting of the ice sheets is considered. The erosion along the sides of the Niagara Gorge gives a more dependable estimate of the time-only about 2,000 years. The erosion of till by Plum Creek, in Ohio, provides an estimate of 3,000-to-4,000 years. By adding 700 years, a date for the Flood can be estimated.

During the ice age and afterwards, sea level fluctuated due to the formation and melting of the ice sheets. The maximum lowering of sea level would be significantly less than indicated by uniformitarian estimates, which are based on excessive ice thickness and many other poorly known variables. The ice sheets caused the crust to depress and then rebound. The amount of rebound, based on the highest observed shore line, and the slow uplift measured today, agree best with a thin ice sheet that melted relatively recently. Uniformitarian estimates claim a much higher amount of isostatic rebound due to a thicker ice sheet. Negative gravity anomalies in Scandinavia and the Hudson Bay area are used to bolster these high values, but the magnitude of the remaining rebound, surmised from these anomalies, is not known because of additional variables, whose effects have not been quantified. A major time-scale problem is the depth of biogenic sediments on the bottom of the ocean. From present estimates, these sediments would need millions of years to accumulate. But the Flood and a post-Flood ice age can potentially account for these sediments in a short time. Due to a rapid mixing of the ocean during the ice age, a large flux of nutrients would have been available for very large numbers of plankton. Shells, from zooplankton, would not dissolve as fast as they do today, and would have accumulated more rapidly on the bottom of the ocean.

Further Research

It is expected that the reader, who has carefully read the preceding chapters, has now concluded that a post-Flood ice-age model is not only viable but far superior to any uniformitarian ice-age model. It can account for a number of outstanding mysteries of the ice age. A good model also suggests areas for further research. One of these areas is the origin of drumlins.

Drumlins are lens-shaped mounds of glacial deposits, found by the thousands in some areas. Drumlins can sometimes be as long as a mile, and several hundred feet high. They have been moulded and streamlined, with their long axis parallel to glacial movement. They are the last remnants of glaciation, since they are easily erodible, and eskers are sometimes draped over them. The internal composition is variable. Sometimes solid rock forms the core of a drumlin, and at other times, till and even stratified deposits, predominate. How a glacier forms drumlins is a long-standing puzzle (Muller, 1974). Shaw (1988), referring to two recent conferences on the origin of drumlins, writes: “No general agreement appears to have materialized on future research initiatives, and drumlins remain as enigmatic as ever... [the origin of drumlins is] one of the great unsolved problems in Quaternary geology.”

There are two schools of thought on the origin of drumlins (Menzies and Rose, 1987a). One school believes drumlins are formed by subglacial deformation and the squeezing of till into elliptical mounds (Boulton, 1987a). The other, newer school of thought, believes they are formed by subglacial meltwater (Shaw, 1983; Dardis et al., 1984; Shaw and Kvill, 1984; Shaw and Sharpe, 1987; Shaw, 1989). Unfortunately, the issue is difficult to resolve, because few drumlins have been extensively studied (Boulton, 1987a, p. 65; Dardis, 1987, p. 215). This newer school points to the fact that many drumlins frequently contain stratified deposits ranging from gravels to finely laminated clay (Menzies and Rose, 1987b, p. 2). Most important, these stratified deposits are often undeformed. Shaw (1988, p. 354) states the significance of this observation:

It is simply not possible for drumlins to form by pervasive subglacial deformation and, at the same time, contain large thicknesses of undeformed, but highly deformable, fine-grained laminated sediment near the landform surface. The second school of thought has theorized that drumlins form in extra-wide subglacial tunnels excavated by water. Then the tunnels fill with sediments that are streamlined by glacial motion. Because the amount of meltwater needed to form drumlins is much higher than most glacial geologists can envision, the two schools radically diverge (Menzies and Rose, 1987b). Boulton (1987b, p. 28) states the problem as follows:

If this explanation were correct for many or most drumlins, their high frequency in many areas, and common evidence for their rapid construction would imply that the ice sheets underwent rapid and catastrophic “dewatering” events which would lead to large-scale instability and have a major impact on our concept of the evolution of glacial cycles.

Catastrophic “dewatering” and rapid formation of drumlins are expected during deglaciation in a post-Flood, ice-age model. Consequently, this model may provide the missing key for explaining the origin of drumlins. The ice age model presented in this monograph, can possibly provide solutions to many post-Flood creationist puzzles, particularly in trying to account for data sets that appear to need much more time for formation than Scripture allows. The origin of biogenic sediments on the bottom of the ocean, presented in Chapter 8, is but one example. Another example is the origin of limestone caves. According to the creationist paradigm, these caves and their speleothems must have formed in the waning stages of the Genesis Flood and in post-Flood time. Creationists have researched the origin of cave deposits, and can point out that stalactites can sometimes form rapidly (Austin, 1980). Strahler (1987, pp. 279-281) claims that creationist research in this area is flawed, and that much more post-Flood time is required than the Bible allows.

However, Strahler (1987, p. 281) does recognize that cave deposits are climate-dependent. A cavern, or cave, must first be dissolved out of the limestone before speleothems can form. This depends especially on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and in the soil, due to biological processes (Sutcliffe, 1985, p. 79). Limestone solution is most rapid in moist climates, and depends, secondarily, on temperature. In the post-Flood climate, precipitation in non-glaciated areas was at least three times the present precipitation. Higher rainfall would have caused more surface vegetation and ground litter that would contain higher amounts of Col 2:1-23, especially in currently semi-arid regions. Atmospheric carbon dioxide would have been quite high at the beginning of the ice age (see Chapter 3). These factors can possibly account for the rapid formation of caves and speleothems during the ice age, especially for those caves in which the present climate is too dry for their formation (Charlesworth, 1957, p. 1112).

Another problem, more for a post-Flood than a uniformitarian model, is the transport of far-traveled, erratic boulders, if, indeed, they are far-traveled. Some of these boulders weigh hundreds of tons, and supposedly traveled hundreds of miles. They are commonly angular, indicating protection from abrasion by bedrock and other boulders in the ice. It is hard to see how a thin ice sheet could transport boulders large distances, although modest distances are possible. But, there are possible solutions to this problem. The actual evidence for far-traveled boulders should first be reexamined. Most “far-traveled” erratics could be classifications based on a model in which ice sheets developed in the far north, and slowly spread to the southern periphery. Given the pervasiveness of this model, it is doubtful that other possibilities have been seriously considered.

Since nearly all till, including most boulders, is local (Feininger, 1971), why should a small minority of the boulders be far-traveled? To protect boulders from the grinding action at the base of a glacier, they must first be thrust well up into the ice from below-a more difficult task than with the finer-grained till. The Laurentide ice sheet developed and mainly moved over flat terrain. There are no mountains from which a boulder could roll down onto the ice sheet, as observed in valley glaciers today. Whillans (1978, pp. 517, 518) says that, except for shear planes near the glacial snout (Figure 7.4), no good mechanism exists for transporting basal debris vertically up into the ice. If the boulders could be emplaced upward in the ice, the ice sheet must then transport them hundreds of miles, which the local nature of till makes questionable. As discussed in Chapter 5, the margins of the Laurentide ice sheet were very thin. Mathews (1974, p. 41) questions how ice sheets, with low slopes, could build morainal ridges containing far-traveled erratics. The source of many unique erratics is not really known. Could the source rock be actually nearby, but covered by till? Possibly a nearby source was completely eroded, except for a few residual outcroppings. Caldwell and Hansen (1986) invoked this explanation to account for “erratic” boulders on Mt. Katahdin that other scientists claim were transported a long distance, and forced uphill to near the top of the mountain.

Some erratic boulders, transported across the Baltic Sea, are believed to have been emplaced by floating ice (Houmark-Nielsen, 1983, p. 201; de Jong and Maarleveld, 1983, p. 353). Erratics, transported eastward across Hudson Bay, are now believed to have been transported by icebergs, or sea ice, since they are found below the marine limit (Andrews, 1982, p. 24). Some far-traveled boulders in the northern Queen Elizabeth Islands, could have been transported by ice rafting (Bird, 1967, p. 108). Extensive pro-glacial lakes and large rivers formed at the boundary of the ice sheets as they melted (Bretz, 1943; Gudelis and Königsson, 1979; Karrow and Calkin, 1985). Icebergs, containing boulders, could have been transported far by these interconnected lakes and large rivers. Erratics also could have been deposited south of the ice sheet boundary by this mechanism. In summary, there are many problems with the concept of far-traveled boulders. Other variables could have been responsible for them. An extensive investigation of these erratics is needed, but still, questions of their origin probably would remain due to the many complications.

Implications The Genesis Flood is the basis for the post-Flood ice-age model. Since this model can explain the development of ice sheets, and offer viable solutions to many outstanding ice age mysteries, the Flood should offer a firmer foundation for pre-glacial, earth history. After all, if the principle of uniformitarianism cannot explain the last geological period, why should it be the basis for all other geological periods?

Since uniformitarianism is unable to solve many mysteries of the past, it should be discarded, along with its accompanying theories-the theory of evolution and an old earth. A revolution, or paradigm change in historical science would result. Many research conclusions would be rethought. The contribution to science and to life would be overwhelmingly positive.

Uniformitarian scientists are fond of accusing creationists of merely attacking the theory of evolution, without providing positive contributions to science. If a theory has serious problems, a positive alternative is not necessarily needed to advance science. On the basis of the Creation-Flood paradigm, creationists have made significant contributions to scientific problems. The ice-age model, presented in this book, is one such effort. Most evolutionists have had little contact with these contributions. A post-Flood ice-age model is but one example of an explanation for a phenomenon of natural history using the Creation-Flood paradigm. New scientific data relating to earth history is published each year. Most of these data are incorporated within the uniformitarian paradigm, whether the data fit, or not. Care must be exercised in using these data, since data collection and/or presentation is often biased by theory. Much new, as well as old scientific data, need reinterpreting within a Creation-Flood paradigm. This cannot be accomplished quickly. Thousands of uniformitarian scientists have spent over 150 years, and billions of dollars, on the uniformitarian model of earth history. Patience is needed to decipher the information on a particular subject. Creationists, as well as others, must be careful not to jump to conclusions too quickly. Of course, not every mystery of the past will be solved. But with time, and effort, many aspects of the Creation-Flood paradigm can be filled in, and will result in a far superior model of the prehistoric past. A post-Flood, rapid ice age, supports the Genesis Flood, which further supports the historicity of the Bible. It also adds credence to the God of the Bible, and to the spiritual message in the Bible. A God who has control of the earth, can cause a global Flood, and allow an ice age is very powerful. He is even more powerful and intelligent for having created the entire universe. He is a master mathematician, engineer, and artist. Only the God of power and love described in the Bible, is up to the task.