In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood

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Figure 114: A Yedoma. These Siberian hills, called yedomas, are honeycombed with ice. The ice and soil layering seen within yedomas (for example, left of the man) suggests that high winds accompanied the deposition of the material. Remains of forests, mammoths, and other animals are frequently found in yedomas.

The ice and mud were not deposited as hills. Instead, they were deposited as one thick layer. Later, as the ice began to melt in spots, water collected in the depressions, accelerating the melting near them. What is now left, after thousands of years of summer melting, are these hills. Because some yedomas are 200 feet tall, the initial deposition in the windy environment was at least 200 feet thick.

This soil has been identified as loess104 (a German term, pronounced “LERSE”). Little is known about its origin. Most believe it is a windblown deposit spread under cold, glacial conditions over huge regions of the earth. However, Siberia was scarcely glaciated, and normal winds would deposit loess too slowly to protect so many frozen animals from predators. Loess often blankets formerly glaciated regions, such as Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and Alaska. It lacks internal layering (stratification) and is found at all elevations—from just above sea level to hillsides at 8,000 feet elevation. Because loess is at many elevations and its tiny particles are not rounded by thousands of years of exposure to water and wind, some have proposed that loess came recently from outer space.105 Loess, a fertile soil rich in carbonates, has a yellow tinge caused by the oxidation of iron-bearing minerals since it was deposited.106 China’s Yellow River and Yellow Sea are so named because of the loess suspended in them. Why is there an apparent relationship between frozen mammoths, yedomas, and loess?

Figure 115: Extensive Loess Deposits. Another property of loess is its ability to maintain a vertical cliff. This is seen here in agricultural terraces in northern China, south of Huang Ho. Some historians have persuasively argued that the loess deposits helped establish early Chinese civilization, because the fertility of loess soil allows two and sometimes three crops a year—without fertilizers. Homes, even furniture, have been carved out of loess hillsides, sometimes 200 feet underground. Entire villages are cut into loess cliffs. Several million people have lived in loess dwellings. While such homes are cheap, insulated, militarily defensible, and may last for generations, they are unstable and dangerous. The 1920 Kansu earthquake, for example, resulted in 180,000 deaths, primarily from the collapse of loess dwellings.115

Conclusion.  This brief survey raises several intriguing but perplexing problems. How could mammoths have lived at Arctic latitudes? What killed them, and how were they buried in such a peculiar manner? Some must have frozen within hours after their deaths, because significant decay or mutilation by scavengers did not occur. However, just before the mammoths were frozen, during that late summer or early fall, conditions in Siberia were not cold. What happened?

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Evidence Requiring an Explanation

Summarized below are the hard-to-explain details which any satisfactory theory for the frozen mammoths should explain.

Abundant Food.  A typical wild elephant requires about 330 pounds of food per day. Therefore, vast quantities of food were needed to support the estimated 5,000,000 mammoths that lived in just a small portion of northern Siberia. Adams’ mammoth, discovered in 1799, “was so fat ... that its belly hung below its knees.”107 How was abundant food available inside the Arctic Circle, especially during winter months when the Sun rarely shines?

Warm Climate.  Abundant food requires a temperate climate—much warmer than northern Siberia today. Only a small percentage of the food found in Berezovka’s mouth and stomach grows near the Arctic Circle today. Furthermore, the flower fragments in its stomach show that it died during warm weather. Despite the popular misconception, the mammoth was a temperate—not an Arctic—animal.

Away From Rivers.  Although most frozen remains are found along river banks where excavations occur naturally, some frozen remains are found far from rivers.

Yedomas and Loess.  Frozen mammoths are frequently found in yedomas and loess. What accounts for this and the strange properties of yedomas and loess?

Elevated Burials.  Mammoth and rhinoceros bodies are often found on the highest levels of generally flat, low plateaus.108 Examples include dense concentrations of mammoth and rhinoceros remains in yedomas and the interior of Arctic islands. Dima was discovered in a mountainous region.

Multi-Continental.  Soft parts of large animals have been preserved over a 3,000-mile-wide zone spanning two continents. It is unlikely that many unrelated local events would produce such similar results over such a broad geographical area.

Rock Ice.  Strange, granular ice containing clay, sand, and a large volume of air pockets is sometimes found near frozen mammoths. It apparently is a Type 3 ice. [See Table 9 on page 185.]

Frozen Muck.  Mammoth carcasses are almost exclusively encased in frozen muck.109 Also buried in muck are huge deposits of trees and other animal and vegetable matter. The origin of muck is a mystery.

Sudden Freezing.  Some frozen mammoths and rhinoceroses had food preserved in their mouths, stomachs, or intestines.110

Suffocation.  At least three mammoths and two rhinoceroses suffocated. No other cause of death has been established for the remaining frozen giants.

Dirty Lungs.  Dima’s digestive and respiratory tract contained silt, clay, and small particles of gravel. Evidently, soon before he died, Dima breathed air and/or ate food containing such matter.

-150°F. Temperatures surrounding some mammoths must have plunged below -150°F.

Large Animals.  The frozen remains are usually of the larger, stronger animals such as mammoths and rhinoceroses.

Summer-Fall Death.  Vegetation in the stomachs and intestines of preserved mammoths implies that they died in late summer or early fall,111 perhaps in August112 or even late July.113

Animal Mixes.  Bones of many types of animals, friends and foes, are frequently found near the mammoths.

Upright.  Several frozen mammoths, and even mammoth skeletons,114 were found upright. Despite this posture, the Berezovka mammoth had a broken pelvis and shoulder blade, and a crushed leg. Surprisingly, he was not lying on his side in a position of agony.

Vertical Compression.  The crushed leg bone and horizontally flattened gotcha10 of the Berezovka mammoth show severe vertical compression after death. Dima was also compressed and flattened.

Seventeen pieces of the problem are now before us. Fitting this centuries-old jigsaw puzzle together will be the final task. As you will see, clever and imaginative proposals have been made, but most address only a few pieces of the frozen-mammoth puzzle.

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What Happened?

Two strange, but admittedly secondary, reports may relate to the frozen-mammoth problem. Each is so surprising that one might dismiss it as a mistake or hoax, just as with any single report of a frozen and buried mammoth. However, because both reports are so similar yet originated from such different sources, it is probably best to reserve judgement. Each report was accepted as credible and published by an eminent scientific authority. Each involved the sudden freezing of a river in apparent defiance of the way bodies of water freeze. Each contained frozen animals in transparent ice, yet natural ice is rarely transparent. Each discovery was in a cold, remote part of the world. One was in the heart of Siberia’s frozen-mammoth country.

The brief reports will be given exactly as they were written and translated. The first was published by the former Soviet Academy of Sciences. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, recalled this report (as best he could remember it) in the first paragraph of his preface to The Gulag Archipelago. Unfortunately, Solzhenitsyn did not give the report’s date, so I began a difficult search. The report was finally located in Moscow’s Lenin State Library.

Y. N. Popov, author of this report, was discussing the scientific importance of finding mammals frozen in Siberia.  He then described some frozen fish:

There are some cases of finds of not only dead mammals, but also fishes, unfortunately lost for science. In 1942, during road construction in the Liglikhtakha River valley (the Kolyma Basin) an explosion opened a subterranean lens of transparent ice encasing frozen specimens of some big fishes. Apparently the explosion opened an ancient river channel with representatives of the ancient ichthyological fauna [fish]. The superintendent of construction reported the fishes to be of amazing freshness, and the chunks of meat thrown out by the explosion were eaten by those present.118

The second report comes from M. Huc, a missionary traveler in Tibet in 1846. Sir Charles Lyell, often called the “father of geology,” also quoted this same story in the eleventh edition of his Principles of Geology. After many of Huc’s party had frozen to death, survivors pitched their tents on the banks of the Mouroui-Oussou (which lower down becomes the famous Blue River).  Huc reported:

At the moment of crossing the Mouroui-Oussou, a singular spectacle presented itself. While yet in our encampment, we had observed at a distance some black shapeless objects ranged in file across the great river. No change either in form or distinctness was apparent as we advanced, nor was it till they were quite close that we recognized in them a troop of the wild oxen. There were more than fifty of them encrusted in the ice. No doubt they had tried to swim across at the moment of congelation [freezing], and had been unable to disengage themselves. Their beautiful heads, surmounted by huge horns, were still above the surface; but their bodies were held fast in the ice, which was so transparent that the position of the imprudent beasts was easily distinguishable; they looked as if still swimming, but the eagles and ravens had pecked out their eyes.124

Any explanation for these strange discoveries must recognize that streams freeze from the top down.125 The ice formed insulates the warmer liquid water below. The thicker the ice grows, the harder it is for the liquid’s heat to pass up through the ice layer and into the cold air. Freezing a stream fast enough to trap more than fifty upright oxen in the act of swimming across, seems impossible, especially because a stream’s velocity, and thus its tendency to freeze, varies considerably across its width. Freezing a river so fast that many large fish are frozen, edible, and underground, defies belief. However, the similarities with the frozen mammoths are so great that these reports may be related. A possible explanation will follow shortly.

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Theories Attempting to Explain Frozen Mammoths

Nine theories have been proposed to explain the frozen-mammoth puzzle. Each will be described below as an advocate would.

Fruitful theories answer not only the obvious, initial questions but also solve perplexing and seemingly unrelated problems. As we unravel the frozen-mammoth mystery, we may answer broader questions and even uncover a sequence of dramatic, global events.

Robust theories also provide details that generate surprising and testable predictions. Keep this in mind as we examine all nine explanations. With each, ask yourself, “What predictions can this theory make?” If few predictions are forthcoming, the theory is probably weak.116 If theories could not be published unless they included numerous details and specific predictions, we would be mercifully spared many distractions and false ideas.

Hydroplate Theory.  [For a more complete description of the hydroplate theory, read pages 102–131.] The rupture of the earth’s crust passed between what is now Alaska and Siberia in minutes. Jetting water from the “fountains of the great deep” first fell as rain. During the next few hours, subterranean water that went above the atmosphere, where the effective temperature is several hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit,117 fell as hail. Some animals were suddenly buried, suffocated, frozen, and compressed by tons of cold, muddy ice crystals from the gigantic “hail storm.” The mud in this ice prevented it from floating as the flood waters submerged these regions after days and weeks. Blankets of supercold ice, hundreds of feet thick, insulated and preserved many animals during the flood phase. After mountains were suddenly pushed up, the earth’s balance shifted, the earth “rolled,” so Alaska and Siberia moved from a temperate latitude to their present position. [For details, see Endnote 53 on page 128.] As the flood waters drained off the continents, the icy graves in warmer climates melted, and the flesh of those animals decayed. However, many animals, buried in what are now permafrost regions, were preserved.

These conclusions can be reached quite simply. The evidence showing compression and suffocation of the frozen mammoths implies rapid burial. Rapid burial and sudden freezing suggest a supercold “ice dump.”

compression + suffocation = rapid burial

rapid burial + sudden freezing = an “ice dump”

Lake Drowning Theory.119 No catastrophe occurred. The well-preserved mammoths, with food in their stomachs and between their teeth, died suddenly, probably from asphyxiation resulting from drowning in a partially frozen lake, river, or bog. Such burials can preserve animal—and even human—tissue for thousands of years.

Crevasse Theory.  Some mammoths fell into ice crevasses or deep snowdrifts. This protected them from predators, while ice preserved them for thousands of years.120

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Mud Burial Theory.  In Siberian summers, the top foot or so of tundra thaws, so larger animals, even men, can easily become stuck—standing upright. Herds of mammoths, rhinoceroses, and buffalo made summer migrations to northern Siberia and Alaska. Some became stuck in this mud; others were overwhelmed and suffocated in mudslides. Still others died for various reasons and were then buried in slow mudflows during several summer thaws. Sudden cold spells—sometimes followed by long, cold winters—froze and preserved many mammoths.121

River Transport Theory.  Mammoths and other animals lived farther south in the temperate zone of Asia where food was abundant. Flooding rivers floated their remains from Central Siberia on the north-flowing rivers.122

Extinction-by-Man  Theory.  Man exterminated mammoths, just as man almost exterminated the buffalo. Man, in hunting mammoths, pursued and pushed them north into Siberia and Alaska. There they died from harsh weather, lack of food, or the direct killing by man.123

Bering Barrier Theory. As ice accumulated on continents during the last Ice Age, sea level was lowered by 300 feet and the Bering Strait was closed. This newly created land bridge allowed people and animals, including mammoths, to migrate between Siberia and Alaska and onto Arctic islands. Because the warmer Pacific waters could no longer mix through the Bering Strait with the cold Arctic Ocean, the Pacific waters became even warmer and the Arctic waters even colder. The resulting heavy evaporation from the Pacific caused extreme snow falls on higher, colder land masses north of the Bering barrier. Mammoths and others were buried in severe snow storms early one fall. As the Ice Age ended, heavy rains washed soil down on top of compacted snow deposits, forming rock ice. Some frozen mammoths and rock ice are still preserved. Since this last Ice Age, glacial melting raised sea levels and reestablished the Bering Strait.126

Shifting Crust Theory. Before the last Ice Age, the Hudson Bay was at the North Pole. Siberia and Alaska were farther south and supported abundant vegetation and large herds of mammoths. As vast amounts of ice accumulated at what had been the North Pole, the crust on the spinning earth became unbalanced and slid, moving Siberia northward. Because the earth is slightly flattened at the poles and bulges at the equator, the shifting crust produced many ruptures. Volcanic gas was thrown above the atmosphere where it cooled and descended as a supercold “blob.” Airborne volcanic dust lowered temperatures on earth and caused phenomenal snow storms. Mammoths and other animals living in Siberia and Alaska were suddenly frozen and buried in extremely cold snow.  Some are still preserved.127

Meteorite Theory.  At the end of the last Ice Age, a large iron meteorite hit earth’s atmosphere. The resulting heat temporarily melted the top layers of the frozen tundra, causing mammoths to sink into muck. Poor visibility caused others “to blunder to their deaths in icy bogs.”128

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Evaluation of Evidence vs. Theories

Table 11 summarizes how well each theory explains the many strange things associated with frozen mammoths. Each column corresponds to a theory, and each row represents a strange detail requiring an explanation. A green circle means that, in my opinion, the column’s theory provides a reasonable explanation for the detail represented by that row. Yellow and red circles indicate moderate and serious problems. Numbers in Table 11 refer to amplifying explanations below.

Readers may make their own judgments and independently assess each theory’s plausibility. For example, if you feel that a detail or theory has been omitted or misstated, modify the table. This tabular approach focuses future discussions on areas of critical disagreement. It also helps keep all details and competing theories in mind, encouraging balance and thoroughness. Often a disagreement becomes moot when one realizes other facts opposing some theory. When a theory is proposed, usually only the details supporting it and opposing a competing theory are mentioned. Table 11 contrasts all published theories with all known diagnostic details.

In seeking the cause of many strange and related details, one is tempted to use a separate explanation for each detail. Throughout the history of science, experience has shown that the simplest theory explaining the most details is most likely to be correct. For example, a sudden rash of fires in a city may all be unrelated. However, most investigators would instinctively look for a common explanation. Centuries ago, each newly discovered detail of planetary motion required, in effect, a new theory. Later, one theory (Newton’s Law of Gravitation) provided a simple explanation for all these motions.

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Details Relating to the Hydroplate Theory

1. circlegreen.jpg ImageAbundant Food. Winter sunlight inside the Arctic Circle is so scarce that vegetation hardly grows, regardless of temperature. How could mammoths survive during even a warm winter? (The shifting crust theory, explained on page 190, recognizing this problem of feeding millions of mammoths during winter months, says the earth’s crust shifted, moving Siberia and Alaska north. However, the claimed force would be completely inadequate to slide the entire earth’s crust—rock on rock.)

Mammoths were living at temperate latitudes before the flood. As major mountains suddenly formed toward the end of the flood, the earth became slightly unbalanced and rolled. The preflood North Pole shifted from what is now central Asia. This roll also explains why dinosaur remains are found inside Antarctica and the Arctic Circle. [See Endnote 53 on page 128 for details and evidence.]

2. circlegreen.jpg ImageYedomas and Loess.  (These terms are explained on page 185. Pages 170-175 explain why the subterranean water was saturated with carbon dioxide.) The extreme pressure in the subterranean chamber accelerated the escaping carbon-rich water to supersonic speeds, rapidly eroding the rock bounding the chamber and rupture. Eroded dirt particles of various sizes were swept up by the water expelled into and above the atmosphere. As you will see, the higher a muddy droplet rose, the more likely it was to lose the larger particles carried inside. Therefore, droplets that rose above the atmosphere and froze contained the powdery dirt particles that comprise yedoma hills and the world’s loess.

First, visualize a water droplet jetting up through the atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure drops as it goes higher, so some water evaporates from its surface. Evaporation cools the droplet, just as evaporating perspiration cools a person. Gusts of air and water vapor strike the droplet from differing directions, each time dragging its surface around toward the opposite, or downstream side. This creates a strong and complicated circulation within the droplet and chaotic waves on its surface. Sometimes the droplet fragments into two or more pieces, but the smaller each piece becomes, the stronger the molecular forces (the surface tension) holding it together.

In the droplet are many tiny dirt particles. The flow within the droplet carries the smaller particles more smoothly than larger particles,139 while the larger particles are sometimes shaken out of the buffeted droplet. When the droplet finally freezes high above the atmosphere, only the smallest dirt particles remain. Being encased in ice, they are protected from water erosion that would round and smooth their sharper corners.

Much of this dirty ice fell to earth in a giant hail storm as the flood began. High winds ripped up trees and pulverized vegetation that mixed with the fallen, muddy hail. Animals froze and suffocated. When the ice melted, it left behind tiny, angular dirt particles (now called loess) and dissolved salts. Years later, the muddy hail began melting in many isolated locations. Water, collected in these depressions during the summer, accelerated nearby melting. Today’s hilly yedomas remain. Therefore, in Arctic regions where little summer melting occurs, the loess, salt, vegetation, and mammoth remains were largely preserved in cold yedomas.

Loess is commonly found near formerly glaciated areas. It is especially abundant downwind of Ice Age drainage channels, such as the Mississippi River. In warmer climates, wind often removed the loess, rain leached salts from the soil, and the organic material decayed.

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The bottom layers of ice sheets in Greenland, Canada, and Antarctica contain up to 50 times more microparticles than the glacial ice above.140 Ice crystals containing these microparticles are much smaller than normal glacial ice crystals. This suggests that the hail that buried and froze the mammoths was smaller than normal hail. Another study found that the lower portion of the Greenland ice sheet contains abnormally high amounts of dust, sea salt, and other chemicals.141

3. Elevated Burials, Frozen Muck, Animal Mixes.circlegreen.jpg Image Bones, ivory, and flesh are found on circlegreen.jpg Imagehigher ground, such as in yedomas and on Arctic circlegreen.jpg Imageislands. (The preceding page explains why mammoth remains are found in yedomas.) Prey and predator may also have sought protection from the greater common enemy—rising waters from rain that would have preceded the muddy hail. Animals may have tried to escape noxious gases evaporating from the hail. Larger animals, such as mammoths and rhinoceroses, in rushing to higher ground, crushed and buried smaller animals in mud and ice. This may explain the antelope skull under Berezovka.

Fine sediments in the muddy rain and ice mixed with pulverized vegetation to form muck. This soupy mixture, along with ripped up forests, flowed into valleys and other low areas, smoothing the topography into flat, low plateaus. Later this muck froze, preserving to this day its distinguishing organic component and loess.

4. circlegreen.jpg ImageRock Ice.  Table 9 on page 185 shows why rock ice is a Type 3 ice. As was stated on page 112, the subterranean waters contained large quantities of dissolved salt and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide contributed to the carbonates found in loess.

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Before the flood, the subterranean water, sealed off from the atmosphere, contained no dissolved air. As the “fountains of the great deep” exploded up through the atmosphere, rapid and steady evaporation from the rising liquid forced gases away from, rather than toward, each rising liquid particle. Therefore, the water that froze above the atmosphere had little dissolved air but much carbon dioxide. Both froze to become a mixture of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide, or “dry ice.”

Ice absorbs air very slowly, especially the inner portion of a large volume of falling ice particles, so little air was absorbed as the muddy hail fell to earth. Once the ice was on the warm ground, some “dry ice” and water ice slowly evaporated as white clouds. As the ice depth increased to perhaps several hundred feet, these clouds billowed up through gaps between the ice particles, forcing out any air that might have been between them. Eventually, the weight of the topmost layers of ice essentially sealed the lower ice from the air above. This is why Herz saw the ice under Berezovka turn yellow-brown as the ice first contacted and reacted chemically with air.

The Ice Age followed the flood. Since then, the surface of the ground in Alaska and Siberia melts slightly each summer. In some parts of Alaska and Siberia, this included several feet of rock ice. When a layer of this dirty ice melted, the water drained away, leaving particles of dirt and vegetation behind. This remaining clay and silt provided an insulating blanket, causing less ice to melt each succeeding year. Most of the unsorted clay and silt above rock ice came from melted rock ice.

5. circlegreen.jpg ImageSuffocation.  Suffocation could have occurred three ways: (a) being buried alive in muddy hail, (b) breathing too much carbon dioxide gas from evaporating “dry ice,” or (c) freezing lung tissue so oxygen could not diffuse into the blood and carbon dioxide could not diffuse out of the blood.

6. circlegreen.jpg ImageDirty Lungs.  The jetting fountains of the great deep produced extreme winds. Dirt filled the atmosphere for a few hours before rain and ice reached Dima. This is why the entire digestive and respiratory tract of this well-preserved mammoth contained silt, clay, and small particles of gravel.

7. circlegreen.jpg Image-150°F, Large Animals. Almost all the energy of a falling hail particle ends up accelerating air circlegreen.jpg Imagedownward, not heating the particle.143 The result was violent downdrafts of cold air.

Larger, stronger animals, such as mammoths and rhinoceroses, best withstood the driving rain and cold wind as they sought safety. Their larger bodies allowed them to better tolerate noxious gases such as carbon dioxide. (Smaller animals process the air they breathe faster, and would suffocate sooner.) Mammoths and rhinoceroses were still standing as the colder hail began piling up at various places—hail whose temperature was about -150°F, corresponding to the temperature above the atmosphere. This supercold ice pressing against their bodies rapidly froze even their internal organs.

Some muddy hail fell to the bottoms of streams, rivers, and lakes. It did not float, because it contained dirt. Its extreme coldness absorbed so much heat that lakes, streams, and the animals therein, quickly froze.  [See “What Happened?” on page 188. Cold muddy hail froze those streams and lakes, not cold air.]

8. circlegreen.jpg ImageUpright, Vertical Compression.  The massive, violent hail storm buried mammoths circlegreen.jpg Imageand rhinoceroses alive, many standing up and compressed from all sides. Babies, such as Dima, were flattened. Exposed parts of adult bodies, unsupported by bone, were vertically flattened. Sometimes even strong bones were crushed by axial compression. Encasement in muddy ice maintained the alignment of Berezovka’s leg bone as it was crushed lengthwise.

Ice slowly flows downhill as, for example, in glaciers. Such a flow, pushing Berezovka’s body tail first, would explain his forward swept hind legs, humped back, displaced vertebrae, and spread front legs bent at the “ankles.”

9. circlegreen.jpg ImageOther/Fossils.  The hydroplate theory states that the frozen animals were buried in muddy hail as the flood began. During the following months, sedimentary layers and their fossils were deposited on top of this ice and sorted by liquefaction.  [See pages 158–168.]

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This is a severe test for this theory, because a few crude geologic maps of Siberia imply that marine fossils lie within several miles of the frozen remains. How accurate are these geologic maps in this relatively unexplored region, and what deposits lie directly beneath frozen carcasses? (If dead mammoths floated on the flood waters, their flesh would not be preserved, but their bones might be found above marine fossils, coal, etc.)

Sedimentary layers generally extend over large areas and sometimes contain distinctive fossils. One can construct a plausible geologic map of an area (a) if many deep layers are exposed, as for example in the face of a cliff, (b) if similar vertical sequences of fossils and rock types are found in nearby exposures, and (c) if no intervening crustal movement has occurred. If all three conditions are satisfied, then it is reasonable to assume that the layers with similar distinctive fossils are connected. To my knowledge, such layers have not been found beneath any frozen mammoth.

Nor is there any known report of marine fossils, layered strata, limestone deposits, or coal seams directly beneath any frozen-mammoth or rhinoceros remains. Tolmachoff, in his chapter on the geology of the Berezovka site, wrote that “Marine shells or marine mammals have never been discovered in [deposits having frozen mammoths].”145 Also, Hern von Maydell, reporting on his third frozen mammoth, wrote, “despite my thorough search, not a single shell or fossil was found.”146 Beneath the Fairbanks Creek mammoth, sediments down to bedrock contained no marine fossils, layered strata, coal seams, or limestone.147

10. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Radiocarbon.  According to the hydroplate theory, all frozen mammoths and rhinoceroses died simultaneously. However, the radiocarbon ages vary. [See Table 8 on page 179.] For an explanation of radiocarbon dating and its assumptions, see pages 283–285. Those pages explain why 40,000 radiocarbon years (RCY) is a typical radiocarbon age for most frozen remains, and why 40,000 radiocarbon years probably correspond to about 5,000 actual years. A slight amount of contamination of the remains, for example by ground water, would lower their radiocarbon age considerably, especially something living as the flood began. This probably explains why different parts of the first Vollosovitch mammoth had widely varying radiocarbon ages—29,500 and 44,000 RCY. One part of Dima was 40,000 RCY, another was 26,000 RCY, and “wood found immediately around the carcass” was 9,000–10,000 RCY. The lower leg of the Fairbanks Creek mammoth had a radiocarbon age of 15,380 RCY, while its skin and flesh were 21,300 RCY.148 The two Colorado Creek mammoths had radiocarbon ages of 22,850 +/- 670 and 16,150 +/- 230 years. Because a bone fragment at one burial site fit precisely with a bone at the other site 30 feet away, and the soil had undergone considerable compression and movement, both mammoths probably died simultaneously.

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Details Relating to the Lake Drowning Theory

11. circlered.jpg ImageAbundant Food.  Lack of winter sunlight inside the Arctic Circle would choke off the mammoth’s food supply each winter, even if temperatures were warm or the mammoth was “adapted” to the cold.

12. circlered.jpg ImageWarm Climate.  Vegetation in the digestive tracts of frozen mammoths shows they died in a mild climate during the late summer or early fall when frozen lakes or rivers would not exist. Many weeks of freezing temperatures are needed to form ice thick enough for a large, hoofed animal to venture far enough from shore to drown.

13. circleyellow.jpg ImageYedomas and Loess, Multi-Continental, Frozen circleyellow.jpg ImageMuck, Upright.  The lake drowning theory does not circleyellow.jpg Imageexplain why mammoths, yedomas, and loess are related, why these peculiar circleyellow.jpg Imageevents occurred over such wide areas on two continents, where so much muck originated, why muck has sometimes buried forests, why yedomas contain so much carbon, or why so many mammoth bodies and skeletons were found upright.

14. circlered.jpg ImageRock Ice.  The ice near several carcasses was not lake or river ice.  It was Type 3 ice, not Type 1 ice.

15. circleyellow.jpg ImageSudden Freezing, -150°F.  Yes, burial in peat bogs can retard circlered.jpg Imagebacterial decay and preserve bodies for thousands of years. However, only a rapid and extreme temperature drop can stop the destructive activity of enzymes and stomach acids.

16. circleyellow.jpg ImageDirty Lungs. Drowning in a lake would not force gravel into Dima’s lungs. Nor would silt, clay, and gravel work its way throughout Dima’s intestines after a sudden drowning.

17. circlered.jpg ImageAnimal Mixes.  If mammoths occasionally fell through ice on an arctic lake, why are the bones of so many temperate animals found together? Why do prey lie near their predators? Large, hoofed animals seldom venture out on frozen lakes.

18. circleyellow.jpg ImageVertical Compression.  Falling into a lake would not produce the vertical compression found in Dima and Berezovka.

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Details Relating to the Crevasse Theory

19. circlered.jpg ImageAbundant Food.  Same as item 11.

20. circlered.jpg ImageWarm Climate.  The contents of Berezovka’s stomach showed that he lived in a warm climate, not one containing ice crevasses. Furthermore, tree fragments and roots were found beneath him. Trees do not grow near icy crevasses. Glacial climates prevent tree growth. Many animals and plants buried in northern Siberia and Alaska live only in temperate climates today. Besides, mammoths were not Arctic animals.

21. Yedomas and Loess, Multi-Continental, circleyellow.jpg ImageSuffocation, Vertical Compression.  circleyellow.jpg ImageThe crevasse theory does not explain why circleyellow.jpg Imagemammoths, yedomas, and loess are related, why yedomas contain so much carbon, why these peculiar events circleyellow.jpg Imageoccurred over such wide areas on two continents, why some of these huge animals suffocated, or what compressed Dima and Berezovka vertically.

22. circleyellow.jpg ImageElevated Burial.  Falling into a crevasse or being transported downhill in a glacier would not herd mammoths up onto islands or up near the higher elevations of flat, low plateaus.  Crevasses form on steep slopes only.

23. circlered.jpg ImageRock Ice.  Mammoths are sometimes buried near Type 3 ice. Crevasses have only Type 2 ice.

24. circleyellow.jpg ImageFrozen Muck.  Frozen mammoths are found primarily in frozen muck, not ice. Where did all the muck come from, and why are so many large trees buried in it?

25. circleyellow.jpg ImageSudden Freezing.  Let us assume that after Berezovka had eaten beans at the base of a glacier, he climbed up to a crevasse, fell in, and died. His stomach acids and enzymes would have destroyed his food in a few hours. Because crevasses are not at the base of glaciers, Berezovka’s long trip up the glacier and subsequent freezing must have been unbelievably rapid to prevent this destruction. Besides, what could motivate a grazing beast to climb a long, steep, icy slope?

26. circlered.jpg ImageDirty Lungs.  Falling into a crevasse would not put gravel in Dima’s lungs or silt, clay, and gravel throughout Dima’s intestines.

27. -150°F.  circlered.jpg ImageSnow is a surprisingly good insulator, as those who have lived in igloos know. Also, transferring heat from a solid object, such as a mammoth’s body, to stagnant air is a slow process. Both conditions would exist if a mammoth fell into a crevasse. Steep crevasse walls would shield the body from cold winds, and glacial ice and stagnant air would insulate the mammoth from sharp drops in the outside temperature. Eventually, the carcass would freeze, but the residual heat in its huge body would delay freezing and cause putrefaction. Hoyle’s comment, therefore, comes as no surprise:

I have been informed that, today, when reindeer fall down crevasses in the Greenland ice, they are subsequently found to be in an unpleasantly putrefied condition. It seems that, no matter how cold the air is, the body heat of the dead animal is sufficient to promote bacterial decomposition.149

Warmer internal organs, such as the stomach, experience even more decay. Furthermore, this theory cannot begin to explain a sudden temperature drop to -150°F.

28. circlered.jpg ImageLarge Animals.  The crevasse theory does not explain why primarily larger animals fell into icy crevasses and froze. Actually, the larger the animal, the greater its internal heat and the more the animal should decay.

29. circlered.jpg ImageAnimal Mixes.  If an occasional mammoth fell into an ice crevasse, why are bones of so many kinds of animals found together? While some might argue that an adult mammoth climbed up a glacier, why would a rhinoceros or a baby such as Dima do so? A heavy, low-slung rhinoceros could not walk in deep snow. Beavers, squirrels, and birds do not fall into crevasses, but all have been found near mammoths.

30. circleyellow.jpg ImageUpright.  Herz, who excavated and analyzed the Berezovka mammoth, felt it had fallen into a crevasse, because it had several broken bones, was frozen, and was found in an upright, although contorted, position. Normally, with a broken pelvis, a broken shoulder, a few broken ribs, and a crushed leg bone, he should have been lying on his side. However, a fall would rarely break bones in different parts of the body. To break so many bones requires many large forces acting from different directions. A blow received from a fall might explain a few fractures, but probably not all, especially the aligned, crushed fracture of the leg.

31. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Glaciers.  Only a few mountains in northeastern Siberia show evidence of former glaciers.

[Soldier4Christ]

Details Relating to the Mud Burial Theory

32. circlered.jpg ImageAway From Rivers, Elevated Burials.  A very large mudslide, such as circleyellow.jpg Imagemight occur near a river bank, is required to suffocate and bury large animals. Yet frozen remains of mammoths and rhinoceroses are sometimes found in the interior of hilly islands, or on high ground far from rivers and river mud. Besides, northern Siberian rivers transport relatively little mud.150 Mud moves slowly, if at all, on cold, flat, low plateaus. Rhinoceroses do not live far above the level of rivers or oceans.

33. circleyellow.jpg ImageYedomas and Loess, Multi-Continental, Frozen Muck, -150°F.  circleyellow.jpg ImageThe mud burial theory does not explain why mammoths,circleyellow.jpg Image yedomas, and loess are related, why yedomas contain so much carbon, why these peculiar circlered.jpg Imageevents occurred over such wide areas on two continents, where so much muck originated, why it contains buried forests, or why temperatures dropped rapidly to -150°F.

34. circlered.jpg ImageRock Ice.  Burial in mud that later froze would produce Type 1 ice, not Type 3 ice.

35. circlered.jpg ImageSudden Freezing.  The coldest a mud flow could be is 32°F. The air would be even warmer. If Berezovka had been encased in mud, a good insulator, his stomach contents would have taken about 20 times longer to cool enough to stop acids and enzymes from destroying the vegetable matter in his stomach. In other words, burial in even cold, flowing mud could not freeze a mammoth rapidly enough. Even if the atmospheric temperature dropped to -200°F after the mammoth was buried, freezing would not be rapid enough to overcome the mud’s insulating effect.

36. circleyellow.jpg ImageDirty Lungs.  One researcher used the mud burial theory to explain why Dima had silt, clay, and small particles of gravel throughout his respiratory and digestive tract.151 While these particles might enter the upper digestive tract, they would not enter the lungs and lower digestive tract. Such particles would need to be in the air for some time, as would occur during sustained high winds.

37. circlered.jpg ImageAnimal Mixes.  Many animals, such as beavers, marmots, voles, and squirrels, whose bones lie near frozen mammoths, do not create enough ground pressure to sink into mud.

38. circleyellow.jpg ImageUpright. The upright Berezovka mammoth suffocated. Burial in a mudslide might explain his suffocation, but it would not explain his upright posture. Becoming stuck in shallow mud might explain the upright posture, but it would not explain the suffocation. The Benkendorf mammoth and others were also upright. [See Table 8 on page 179.]

39. circleyellow.jpg ImageVertical Compression.  Burial in a typical mud flow would not flatten Dima or produce the severe vertical compression found in Berezovka.

40. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Feet.  Elephants rarely become stuck in mud, because their feet expand as weight is placed on them and narrow as they are lifted. In northern Siberia only a thin layer of soil thaws in the summer.

41. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Mouth.  A large animal trapped in mud would probably live for hours, if not days. Therefore, food should not be preserved in its mouth and digestive tract, as occurred for a rhinoceros and several mammoths.

42. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Scavengers.  Large animals buried in mud flows should frequently show marks of scavengers on the top parts of their bodies where mud had not yet reached. No known report has described such a pattern.

43. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Rhinoceroses.  Rhinoceroses and babies (such as Dima) do not migrate as this theory proposes.

[Soldier4Christ]

Details Relating to the River Transport Theory

44. circlered.jpg ImageAway From Rivers, Yedomas and Loess, Multi-Continental, Frozen Muck, -150°F, circleyellow.jpg ImageLarge Animals, Vertical Compression.  circleyellow.jpg ImageThe river transport theory does not explain why frozen mammoths are not exclusively circleyellow.jpg Imagefound along rivers, why circlered.jpg Imagemammoths, yedomas, and loess are related, why these peculiar events circlered.jpg Imageoccurred over such wide areas on two continents, why yedomas contain so much carbon, where circleyellow.jpg Imageso much muck originated, why muck has sometimes buried forests, why temperatures suddenly dropped to -150°F, why primarily the larger animals were frozen and preserved, or what caused the vertical compression in Dima and Berezovka.

45. circleyellow.jpg ImageElevated Burials.  Rivers would not deposit large carcasses on the higher levels of plateaus. A few mammoths are found 1,000 feet above nearby rivers.152

46. Rock Ice.  circlered.jpg ImageWith the river transport theory, one would expect to find Type 1 ice, not Type 3 ice.

47. circleyellow.jpg ImageDirty Lungs. If Dima drowned, silt and clay might have entered his lungs, but not gravel. Nor would drowning distribute those particles throughout his intestines.

48. circleyellow.jpg ImageSummer-Fall Deaths.  How could so many animals, washed far north by rivers, get buried and preserved in hard, frozen muck? Even if flooding rivers buried mammoths under sediments that permanently froze the following winter, their bodies would have decayed after a summer or fall death. Besides, river flooding usually occurs in the spring, not late summer or fall, and rivers do not deposit muck. The organic component in muck would separate and float to the surface.

49. circleyellow.jpg ImageUpright.  Mammoths, transported by rivers, would not be deposited upright, as some were.

50. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Fossils.  No fossils of water animals have been reported in deposits containing frozen mammoths.153

51. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/South.  Teeth and tusks of mammoths found south of Siberia differ considerably from those in Siberia. Therefore, the frozen mammoths are not from the south.

52. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Float.  Cold Siberian and Alaskan rivers would minimize the buildup of gas in a decaying carcass. This is why “bodies ordinarily do not float in very cold water.”154 Even if these remains floated for hundreds of miles, why were some found along very short rivers flowing directly into the Arctic Ocean?155 Why was their long hair not worn off? Why were frozen mammoths found on the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic Ocean, more than 150 miles from the mainland? Their bones do not show the wear associated with transport or water erosion. If an unusually strong river carried floating carcasses to these islands, the carcasses should have been found only along beaches. Instead, remains are found in the interior of islands, the largest of which is 150 miles long and 75 miles wide.156

53. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Alaskan Rivers.  Parts of six frozen mammoths have been found in Alaska, far from where rivers could originate even if temperatures were warm.

54. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Swimmers.  Elephants are, and presumably mammoths were, excellent swimmers.

[Soldier4Christ]

Details Relating to the Extinction-by-Man Theory

55. circlered.jpg ImageAbundant Food.  There is little precedent for believing that man would push any animal population into a harsh environment having little food. Only Dima, a baby, appeared underfed. Most frozen mammoths, complete enough to evaluate, were well fed.

56. circleyellow.jpg ImageYedomas and Loess, -150°F, Large Animals, Vertical Compression.  circlered.jpg ImageThe extinction-by-man theory does not explain the relationship between circlered.jpg Imagemammoths, yedomas, and loess, the circleyellow.jpg Imagesudden drop in temperature to -150°F, the vertical compression circleyellow.jpg Imagefound in Dima and Berezovka, or the preservation of larger, harder to freeze, animals.

57. circleyellow.jpg ImageElevated Burials.  Even if man pushed these animals north into Siberia and Alaska, why would a disproportionate number be buried on the higher elevations of generally flat plateaus?

58. circlered.jpg ImageRock Ice.  With this theory, one would expect Type 1 or 2 ice, not Type 3 ice.

59. circlered.jpg ImageFrozen Muck.  If man killed the mammoths, how were they and even forests buried under frozen muck?  Where did so much muck come from?

60. circleyellow.jpg ImageSuffocation.  If humans killed mammoths and rhinoceroses, why did at least five suffocate?

61. circlered.jpg ImageDirty Lungs.  Being hunted by man would not explain silt, clay, and small gravel particles in Dima’s respiratory and digestive tracts.

62. circlered.jpg ImageAnimal Mixes.  Mammoth remains are often found near bones of animals that man would probably not have simultaneously pursued. Examples include rhinoceroses, horses, tigers, badgers, bears, wolves, hyenas, lynxes, etc. Why would a hunted horse be frozen?157 Today, wild horses live only in mild climates.

63. Upright. Mammoths killed by man would not be found standing up, especially in muck.

64. Other/No Human Signs.  circleyellow.jpg ImageIt is doubtful that primitive man could have exterminated the formidable, even dangerous, mammoth in a remote, frigid, and vast region. Yes, man almost exterminated the less imposing buffalo—with guns in a temperate climate. No human remains (even bones or teeth), no weapons (arrows or knives), and no other artifacts (pottery, utensils, or art) have been found alongside frozen mammoth and rhinoceros remains. Besides, most primitive arrows and spears would do little damage after penetrating the mammoth’s thick skin and fat layers. Nor are the distinctive marks of man’s ax or knife clearly seen on mammoth bones and ivory. If man exterminated mammoths, some signs of human activity should occasionally be found among the millions of mammoth remains. To capture or kill large animals, humans often dig deep pits. This would be extremely difficult in permafrost.

65. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Unpopulated.  Humans in today’s heavily populated areas might try to exterminate mammoths and rhinoceroses. But why would man do this thousands of years ago in barren and sparsely populated regions of northern Siberia?

66. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/Logic.  Humans do not travel to desolate regions for food, especially food difficult to preserve and transport. Even if man occupied these regions, less dangerous and more desirable game was available. In Africa today, man has no great desire for elephant or rhinoceros meat. In fact, before the day of the rifle and the ivory market, man generally avoided these huge African animals. If man killed the mammoth for its ivory tusks, why did he kill the rhinoceros? Why were so many valuable tusks left behind?

67. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/DNA Shift. Corings into the Siberian permafrost have shown a sudden change in DNA with depth. Below a certain level, DNA is from mammoths and lush, temperate vegetation. Above that level, the DNA matches Siberian vegetation today.  As one writer concluded:

The DNA documents a dramatic shift from a landscape of mostly herbaceous plants to dominant shrubs and mosses. ... This lends credibility to the idea that environmental change associated with climatic events was responsible [for extinction of the mammoth], not human hunting, as many have claimed.158

68. circleyellow.jpg ImageOther/South.  Same as item 51.