Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era: animals, plants, climate. Periods of the geological history of the Earth. Glacial period. How often does an ice age occur on Earth? The first ice age on earth

Climatic changes were most clearly expressed in periodically advancing ice ages, which had a significant impact on the transformation of the land surface under the body of the glacier, water bodies and biological objects that are in the zone of influence of the glacier.

According to the latest scientific data, the duration of glacial eras on Earth is at least a third of the entire time of its evolution over the past 2.5 billion years. And if we take into account the long initial phases of the origin of glaciation and its gradual degradation, then the epochs of glaciation will take almost as much time as warm, ice-free conditions. The last of the ice ages began almost a million years ago, in the Quaternary, and was marked by an extensive spread of glaciers - the Great Glaciation of the Earth. The northern part of the North American continent, a significant part of Europe, and possibly Siberia as well, were under thick ice sheets. In the Southern Hemisphere, under the ice, as now, was the entire Antarctic continent.

The main causes of glaciation are:

space;

astronomical;

geographical.

Cosmic Cause Groups:

change in the amount of heat on the Earth due to the passage of the solar system 1 time/186 million years through the cold zones of the Galaxy;

change in the amount of heat received by the Earth due to a decrease in solar activity.

Astronomical groups of causes:

change in the position of the poles;

the inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic;

change in the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit.

Geological and geographical groups of causes:

climate change and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (increase in carbon dioxide - warming; decrease - cooling);

change in the direction of ocean and air currents;

intensive process of mountain building.

Conditions for the manifestation of glaciation on Earth include:

snowfall in the form of precipitation at low temperatures with its accumulation as a material for building up a glacier;

negative temperatures in areas where there are no glaciations;

periods of intense volcanism due to the huge amount of ash emitted by volcanoes, which leads to a sharp decrease in the flow of heat (sun rays) to the earth's surface and causes global temperature decreases by 1.5-2ºС.

The oldest glaciation is the Proterozoic (2300-2000 million years ago) in South Africa, North America, and Western Australia. In Canada, 12 km of sedimentary rocks were deposited, in which three thick strata of glacial origin are distinguished.

Established ancient glaciations (Fig. 23):

on the border of the Cambrian-Proterozoic (about 600 million years ago);

late Ordovician (about 400 million years ago);

Permian and Carboniferous periods (about 300 million years ago).

The duration of ice ages is tens to hundreds of thousands of years.

Rice. 23. Geochronological scale of geological epochs and ancient glaciations

During the period of maximum distribution of the Quaternary glaciation, glaciers covered over 40 million km 2 - about a quarter of the entire surface of the continents. The largest in the Northern Hemisphere was the North American Ice Sheet, reaching a thickness of 3.5 km. Under the ice sheet up to 2.5 km thick was the whole of northern Europe. Having reached the greatest development 250 thousand years ago, the Quaternary glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere began to gradually shrink.

Before the Neogene period, the entire Earth had an even warm climate - in the region of the islands of Svalbard and Franz Josef Land (according to paleobotanical finds of subtropical plants) at that time there were subtropics.

Reasons for the cooling of the climate:

the formation of mountain ranges (Cordillera, Andes), which isolated the Arctic region from warm currents and winds (uplift of mountains by 1 km - cooling by 6ºС);

creation of a cold microclimate in the Arctic region;

cessation of heat supply to the Arctic region from warm equatorial regions.

By the end of the Neogene period, North and South America joined, which created obstacles for the free flow of ocean waters, as a result of which:

equatorial waters turned the current to the north;

the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, cooling sharply in northern waters, created a steam effect;

precipitation of a large amount of precipitation in the form of rain and snow has increased sharply;

a decrease in temperature by 5-6ºС led to the glaciation of vast territories (North America, Europe);

a new period of glaciation began, lasting about 300 thousand years (the frequency of glacier-interglacial periods from the end of the Neogene to the Anthropogen (4 glaciations) is 100 thousand years).

Glaciation was not continuous throughout the Quaternary period. There is geological, paleobotanical and other evidence that during this time the glaciers completely disappeared at least three times, giving way to interglacial epochs when the climate was warmer than the present. However, these warm epochs were replaced by cooling periods, and glaciers spread again. At present, the Earth is at the end of the fourth era of the Quaternary glaciation, and, according to geological forecasts, our descendants in a few hundred-thousand years will again find themselves in the conditions of an ice age, and not warming.

The Quaternary glaciation of Antarctica developed along a different path. It arose many millions of years before the time when glaciers appeared in North America and Europe. In addition to climatic conditions, this was facilitated by the high mainland that existed here for a long time. Unlike the ancient ice sheets of the Northern Hemisphere, which disappeared and reappeared, the Antarctic ice sheet has changed little in its size. The maximum glaciation of Antarctica was only one and a half times greater than the current one in terms of volume and not much more in area.

The culmination of the last ice age on Earth was 21-17 thousand years ago (Fig. 24), when the volume of ice increased to approximately 100 million km3. In Antarctica, glaciation at that time captured the entire continental shelf. The volume of ice in the ice sheet, apparently, reached 40 million km 3, that is, it was about 40% more than its present volume. The boundary of the pack ice shifted to the north by approximately 10°. In the Northern Hemisphere 20 thousand years ago, a giant Panarctic ancient ice sheet was formed, uniting the Eurasian, Greenland, Laurentian and a number of smaller shields, as well as extensive floating ice shelves. The total volume of the shield exceeded 50 million km3, and the level of the World Ocean dropped by at least 125m.

The degradation of the Panarctic cover began 17 thousand years ago with the destruction of the ice shelves that were part of it. After that, the "marine" parts of the Eurasian and North American ice sheets, which lost their stability, began to disintegrate catastrophically. The disintegration of the glaciation occurred in just a few thousand years (Fig. 25).

Huge masses of water flowed from the edge of the ice sheets at that time, giant dammed lakes arose, and their breakthroughs were many times larger than modern ones. In nature, spontaneous processes dominated, immeasurably more active than now. This led to a significant renewal of the natural environment, a partial change in the animal and plant world, and the beginning of human dominance on Earth.

The last retreat of the glaciers, which began over 14 thousand years ago, remains in the memory of people. Apparently, it is the process of melting glaciers and raising the water level in the ocean with extensive flooding of territories that is described in the Bible as a global flood.

12 thousand years ago the Holocene began - the modern geological epoch. The air temperature in temperate latitudes increased by 6° compared to the cold Late Pleistocene. Glaciation took on modern dimensions.

In the historical epoch - approximately for 3 thousand years - the advance of glaciers occurred in separate centuries with low air temperature and increased humidity and were called small ice ages. The same conditions developed in the last centuries of the last era and in the middle of the last millennium. About 2.5 thousand years ago, a significant cooling of the climate began. The Arctic islands were covered with glaciers, in the countries of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea on the verge of a new era, the climate was colder and wetter than now. In the Alps in the 1st millennium BC. e. glaciers moved to lower levels, cluttered mountain passes with ice and destroyed some high-lying villages. This epoch is marked by a major advance of the Caucasian glaciers.

The climate at the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennium AD was quite different. Warmer conditions and the lack of ice in the northern seas allowed the navigators of Northern Europe to penetrate far north. From 870, the colonization of Iceland began, where at that time there were fewer glaciers than now.

In the 10th century, the Normans, led by Eirik the Red, discovered the southern tip of a huge island, the shores of which were overgrown with thick grass and tall shrubs, they founded the first European colony here, and this land was called Greenland, or “green land” (which is by no means now say about the harsh lands of modern Greenland).

By the end of the 1st millennium, mountain glaciers in the Alps, the Caucasus, Scandinavia, and Iceland also retreated strongly.

The climate began to seriously change again in the 14th century. Glaciers began to advance in Greenland, the summer thawing of soils became more and more short-lived, and by the end of the century, permafrost was firmly established here. The ice cover of the northern seas increased, and attempts made in subsequent centuries to reach Greenland by the usual route ended in failure.

From the end of the 15th century, the advance of glaciers began in many mountainous countries and polar regions. After the relatively warm 16th century, harsh centuries came, which were called the Little Ice Age. In the south of Europe, severe and long winters often repeated, in 1621 and 1669 the Bosphorus froze, and in 1709 the Adriatic Sea froze along the shores.

In the second half of the 19th century, the Little Ice Age ended and a relatively warm era began, which continues to this day.

Rice. 24. The boundaries of the last glaciation

Rice. 25. Scheme of the formation and melting of the glacier (along the profile of the Arctic Ocean - Kola Peninsula - Russian Platform)

History of the Ice Age.

The causes of ice ages are cosmic: a change in the activity of the Sun, a change in the position of the Earth relative to the Sun. Planetary cycles: 1). 90 - 100 thousand-year cycles of climate change as a result of changes in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit; 2). 40 - 41 thousand-year cycles of change in the inclination of the earth's axis from 21.5 degrees. up to 24.5 degrees; 3). 21 - 22 thousand-year cycles of change in the orientation of the earth's axis (precession). The results of volcanic activity - the darkening of the earth's atmosphere with dust and ash - have a significant impact.
The oldest glaciation was 800 - 600 million years ago in the Laurentian period of the Precambrian era.
About 300 million years ago, the Permian Carboniferous glaciation occurred at the end of the Carboniferous - the beginning of the Permian period of the Paleozoic era. At that time, the only supercontinent Pangea was on planet Earth. The center of the continent was at the equator, the edge reached the south pole. Ice ages were replaced by warming, and those - again by cold snaps. Such climate changes lasted from 330 to 250 million years ago. During this time, Pangea shifted to the north. About 200 million years ago, an even warm climate was established on Earth for a long time.
About 120 - 100 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era, the mainland Gondwana broke away from the Pangea mainland and remained in the Southern Hemisphere.
At the beginning of the Cenozoic era, in the early Paleogene in the Paleocene epoch - ca. 55 million years ago there was a general tectonic uplift of the earth's surface by 300 - 800 meters, the split of Pangea and Gondwana into continents and a global cooling began. 49 - 48 million years ago, at the beginning of the Eocene epoch, a strait formed between Australia and Antarctica. About 40 million years ago mountain continental glaciers began to form in West Antarctica. During the entire Paleogene period, the configuration of the oceans changed, the Arctic Ocean, the Northwest Passage, the Labrador and Baffin Seas, and the Norwegian-Greenland Basin formed. High blocky mountains rose along the northern shores of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the underwater Mid-Atlantic Ridge developed.
On the border of the Eocene and Oligocene - about 36 - 35 million years ago, Antarctica moved to the South Pole, separated from South America and was cut off from the warm equatorial waters. 28 - 27 million years ago in Antarctica, continuous covers of mountain glaciers were formed and then, during the Oligocene and Miocene, the ice sheet gradually filled the entire Antarctica. The mainland Gondwana finally split into continents: Antarctica, Australia, Africa, Madagascar, Hindustan, South America.
15 million years ago glaciation began in the Arctic Ocean - floating ice, icebergs, sometimes solid ice fields.
10 million years ago, a glacier in the Southern Hemisphere went beyond Antarctica into the ocean and reached its maximum about 5 million years ago, covering the ocean with an ice sheet to the coasts of South America, Africa, and Australia. Floating ice reached the tropics. At the same time, in the Pliocene era, glaciers began to appear in the mountains of the continents of the Northern Hemisphere (Scandinavian, Ural, Pamir-Himalayan, Cordillera) and 4 million years ago filled the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Greenland. North America, Iceland, Europe, North Asia were covered with ice 3 - 2.5 million years ago. The Late Cenozoic Ice Age reached its maximum in the Pleistocene epoch, about 700 thousand years ago. This ice age continues to this day.
So, 2 - 1.7 million years ago, the Upper Cenozoic - Quaternary period began. Glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere on land have reached mid-latitudes, in the Southern continental ice has reached the edge of the shelf, icebergs up to 40-50 degrees. Yu. sh. During this period, about 40 stages of glaciation were observed. The most significant were: Plestocene glaciation I - 930 thousand years ago; Plestocene glaciation II - 840 thousand years ago; Danube glaciation I - 760 thousand years ago; Danube glaciation II - 720 thousand years ago; Danube glaciation III - 680 thousand years ago.
During the Holocene epoch, there were four glaciations on Earth, named after valleys.
Swiss rivers, where they were first studied. The most ancient is the Gyunts glaciation (in North America - Nebraska) 600 - 530 thousand years ago. Gunz I reached its maximum 590 thousand years ago, Gunz II peaked 550 thousand years ago. Glaciation Mindel (Kansasian) 490 - 410 thousand years ago. Mindel I reached its maximum 480 thousand years ago, the peak of Mindel II was 430 thousand years ago. Then came the Great Interglacial, which lasted 170 thousand years. During this period, the Mesozoic warm climate seemed to return, and the ice age ended forever. But he returned.
The Riss glaciation (Illinois, Zaalsk, Dnieper) began 240 - 180 thousand years ago, the most powerful of all four. Riess I reached its maximum 230 thousand years ago, the peak of Riess II was 190 thousand years ago. The thickness of the glacier in the Hudson Bay reached 3.5 kilometers, the edge of the glacier in the mountains of the North. America reached almost to Mexico, on the plain filled the basins of the Great Lakes and reached the river. Ohio, went south along the Appalachians and went to the ocean in the southern part of about. Long Island. In Europe, the glacier filled all of Ireland, Bristol Bay, the English Channel at 49 degrees. with. sh., North Sea at 52 degrees. with. sh., passed through Holland, southern Germany, occupied all of Poland to the Carpathians, Northern Ukraine, descended in tongues along the Dnieper to the rapids, along the Don, along the Volga to Akhtuba, along the Ural Mountains and then went along Siberia to Chukotka.
Then came a new interglacial period, which lasted more than 60 thousand years. Its maximum fell on 125 thousand years ago. In Central Europe at that time there were subtropics, moist deciduous forests grew. Subsequently, they were replaced by coniferous forests and dry prairies.
115 thousand years ago, the last historical glaciation of Würm (Wisconsin, Moscow) began. It ended about 10 thousand years ago. The early Würm peaked ca. 110 thousand years ago and ended approx. 100 thousand years ago. The largest glaciers covered Greenland, Svalbard, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. 100 - 70 thousand years ago interglacial reigned on Earth. Middle Würm - c. 70 - 60 thousand years ago, was much weaker than the Early, and even more so the Late. The last ice age - Late Wurm was 30 - 10 thousand years ago. The maximum glaciation occurred in the period 25 - 18 thousand years ago.
The stage of the greatest glaciation in Europe is called Egga I - 21-17 thousand years ago. Due to the accumulation of water in glaciers, the level of the World Ocean has dropped by 120 - 100 meters below the current one. 5% of all water on Earth was in glaciers. About 18 thousand years ago, a glacier in the North. America reached 40 degrees. with. sh. and Long Island. In Europe, the glacier reached the line: about. Iceland - about. Ireland - Bristol Bay - Norfolk - Schleswig - Pomerania - Northern Belarus - suburbs of Moscow - Komi - Middle Urals at 60 degrees. with. sh. - Taimyr - Putorana Plateau - Chersky Ridge - Chukotka. Due to the lowering of the sea level, the land in Asia was located north of the Novosibirsk Islands and in the northern part of the Bering Sea - "Beringia". Both Americas were connected by the Isthmus of Panama, which blocked the communication of the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, as a result of which a powerful Gulf Stream was formed. There were many islands in the middle part of the Atlantic Ocean from America to Africa, and the largest among them was the island of Atlantis. The northern tip of this island was at the latitude of the city of Cadiz (37 degrees N). The archipelagos of Azores, Canaries, Madeira, Cape Verde are the flooded peaks of the outlying ranges. Ice and polar fronts from the north and south came as close as possible to the equator. The water in the Mediterranean Sea was 4 degrees. With colder modern. The Gulf Stream, rounding Atlantis, ended off the coast of Portugal. The temperature gradient was larger, the winds and currents were stronger. In addition, there were extensive mountain glaciations in the Alps, in Tropical Africa, the mountains of Asia, in Argentina and Tropical South America, New Guinea, Hawaii, Tasmania, New Zealand, and even in the Pyrenees and the mountains of north-west. Spain. The climate in Europe was polar and temperate, vegetation - tundra, forest-tundra, cold steppes, taiga.
The Egg II stage was 16 - 14 thousand years ago. The glacier began to slowly retreat. At the same time, a system of glacier-dammed lakes formed near its edge. Glaciers with a thickness of up to 2 - 3 kilometers with their mass pressed down and lowered the continents into magma and thereby raised the ocean floor, mid-ocean ridges were formed.
About 15 - 12 thousand years ago, the civilization of the "Atlanteans" arose on an island heated by the Gulf Stream. "Atlantes" created a state, an army, had possessions in North Africa to Egypt.
Early Dryas (Luga) stage 13.3 - 12.4 thousand years ago. The slow retreat of the glaciers continued. About 13 thousand years ago, a glacier in Ireland melted.
Tromso-Lyngen stage (Ra; Bölling) 12.3 - 10.2 thousand years ago. About 11 thousand years ago
the glacier melted on the Shetland Islands (the last in Great Britain), in Nova Scotia and on about. Newfoundland (Canada). 11 - 9 thousand years ago, a sharp rise in the level of the World Ocean began. When the glacier was released from the load, the land began to rise and the ocean floor to sink, tectonic changes in the earth's crust, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and floods. Atlantis also perished from these cataclysms around 9570 BC. The main centers of civilization, cities, the majority of the population perished. The remaining "Atlanteans" partly degraded and ran wild, partly died out. Possible descendants of the "Atlanteans" were the "Guanches" tribe in the Canary Islands. Information about Atlantis was preserved by the Egyptian priests and told about it to the Greek aristocrat and legislator Solon c. 570 BC Solon's narrative was rewritten and brought to posterity by the philosopher Plato c. 350 BC
Preboreal stage 10.1 - 8.5 thousand years ago. Global warming has begun. In the Azov-Black Sea region, there was a regression of the sea (a decrease in area) and water desalination. 9.3 - 8.8 thousand years ago the glacier melted in the White Sea and Karelia. About 9 - 8 thousand years ago, the fjords of Baffin Island, Greenland, Norway were freed from ice, the glacier on the island of Iceland retreated 2 - 7 kilometers from the coast. 8.5 - 7.5 thousand years ago, the glacier melted on the Kola and Scandinavian peninsulas. But the warming was uneven, in the Late Holocene there were 5 cooling periods. The first - 10.5 thousand years ago, the second - 8 thousand years ago.
7 - 6 thousand years ago, glaciers in the polar regions and mountains assumed, in the main, their modern outlines. 7 thousand years ago there was a climatic optimum on Earth (the highest average temperature). The current average global temperature is 2 degrees C lower, and if it drops another 6 degrees C, a new ice age will begin.
About 6.5 thousand years ago, a glacier was localized on the Labrador Peninsula in the Torngat Mountains. Approximately 6 thousand years ago, Beringia finally sank and the land "bridge" between Chukotka and Alaska disappeared. The third cooling in the Holocene happened 5.3 thousand years ago.
About 5,000 years ago, civilizations formed in the valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, Indus rivers and the modern historical period began on planet Earth. 4000 - 3500 years ago, the level of the World Ocean became equal to the current level. The fourth cooling in the Holocene was about 2800 years ago. Fifth - "Little Ice Age" in 1450 - 1850. with a minimum of approx. 1700 The global mean temperature was 1 degree C lower than today. There were harsh winters, cold summers in Europe, Sev. America. Frozen bay in New York. Mountain glaciers have greatly increased in the Alps, the Caucasus, Alaska, New Zealand, Lapland and even the Ethiopian highlands.
At present, the interglacial period continues on Earth, but the planet continues its space journey and global changes and climate transformations are inevitable.

Ecology

The ice ages that have taken place more than once on our planet have always been covered in a mass of mysteries. We know that they shrouded entire continents in cold, turning them into uninhabited tundra.

Also known about 11 such periods, and all of them took place with regular constancy. However, we still don't know much about them. We invite you to get acquainted with the most interesting facts about the ice ages of our past.

giant animals

By the time the last ice age arrived, evolution had already mammals appeared. Animals that could survive in harsh climatic conditions were quite large, their bodies were covered with a thick layer of fur.

Scientists have named these creatures "megafauna", which was able to survive at low temperatures in areas covered with ice, for example, in the region of modern Tibet. Smaller animals couldn't adjust to new conditions of glaciation and perished.

Herbivorous representatives of the megafauna have learned to find food even under layers of ice and have been able to adapt to the environment in different ways: for example, rhinos ice age had spatulate horns, with the help of which they dug up snowdrifts.

Predatory animals, for example, saber-toothed cats, giant short-faced bears and dire wolves, perfectly survived in the new conditions. Although their prey could sometimes fight back due to their large size, it was in abundance.

ice age people

Although modern man Homo sapiens could not boast at that time of large size and wool, he was able to survive in the cold tundra of the ice ages for many millennia.

Living conditions were harsh, but people were resourceful. For example, 15 thousand years ago they lived in tribes that were engaged in hunting and gathering, built original dwellings from mammoth bones, and sewed warm clothes from animal skins. When food was plentiful, they stocked up in the permafrost - natural freezer.

Mostly for hunting, such tools as stone knives and arrows were used. To catch and kill the large animals of the Ice Age, it was necessary to use special traps. When the beast fell into such traps, a group of people attacked him and beat him to death.

Little Ice Age

Between major ice ages, there were sometimes small periods. It cannot be said that they were destructive, but they also caused famine, disease due to crop failure, and other problems.

The most recent of the Little Ice Ages began around 12th-14th centuries. The most difficult time can be called the period from 1500 to 1850. At this time in the Northern Hemisphere, a fairly low temperature was observed.

In Europe, it was common when the seas froze, and in mountainous areas, for example, in the territory of modern Switzerland, the snow did not melt even in summer. Cold weather affected every aspect of life and culture. Probably, the Middle Ages remained in history, as "Time of Troubles" also because the planet was dominated by a small ice age.

periods of warming

Some ice ages actually turned out to be quite warm. Despite the fact that the surface of the earth was shrouded in ice, the weather was relatively warm.

Sometimes a sufficiently large amount of carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere of the planet, which is the cause of the appearance greenhouse effect when heat is trapped in the atmosphere and warms the planet. In this case, the ice continues to form and reflect the sun's rays back into space.

According to experts, this phenomenon led to the formation giant desert with ice on the surface but quite warm weather.

When will the next ice age start?

The theory that ice ages occur on our planet at regular intervals goes against theories about global warming. There's no doubt about what's happening today global warming which may help prevent the next ice age.

Human activity leads to the release of carbon dioxide, which is largely responsible for the problem of global warming. However, this gas has another strange by-effect. According to researchers from University of Cambridge, the release of CO2 could stop the next ice age.

According to the planetary cycle of our planet, the next ice age should come soon, but it can take place only if the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be relatively low. However, CO2 levels are currently so high that no ice age is out of the question anytime soon.

Even if humans abruptly stop emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (which is unlikely), the existing amount will be enough to prevent the onset of an ice age. at least another thousand years.

Plants of the Ice Age

The easiest way to live in the Ice Age predators: they could always find food for themselves. But what do herbivores actually eat?

It turns out that there was enough food for these animals. During the ice ages on the planet many plants grew that could survive in harsh conditions. The steppe area was covered with shrubs and grass, which fed mammoths and other herbivores.

Larger plants could also be found in great abundance: for example, firs and pines. Found in warmer regions birches and willows. That is, the climate by and large in many modern southern regions resembled the one that exists today in Siberia.

However, the plants of the Ice Age were somewhat different from modern ones. Of course, with the onset of cold weather many plants died. If the plant was not able to adapt to the new climate, it had two options: either move to more southern zones, or die.

For example, the present-day state of Victoria in southern Australia had the richest variety of plant species on the planet until the Ice Age most of the species died.

Cause of the Ice Age in the Himalayas?

It turns out that the Himalayas, the highest mountain system of our planet, directly related with the onset of the ice age.

40-50 million years ago the land masses where China and India are today collided to form the highest mountains. As a result of the collision, huge volumes of "fresh" rocks from the bowels of the Earth were exposed.

These rocks eroded, and as a result of chemical reactions, carbon dioxide began to be displaced from the atmosphere. The climate on the planet began to become colder, the ice age began.

snowball earth

During different ice ages, our planet was mostly shrouded in ice and snow. only partially. Even during the most severe ice age, ice covered only one third of the globe.

However, there is a hypothesis that at certain periods the Earth was still completely covered in snow, which made her look like a giant snowball. Life still managed to survive thanks to the rare islands with relatively little ice and with enough light for plant photosynthesis.

According to this theory, our planet turned into a snowball at least once, more precisely 716 million years ago.

Garden of Eden

Some scientists are convinced that garden of eden described in the Bible actually existed. It is believed that he was in Africa, and it is thanks to him that our distant ancestors survived the ice age.

About 200 thousand years ago came a severe ice age, which put an end to many forms of life. Fortunately, a small group of people were able to survive the period of severe cold. These people moved to the area where South Africa is today.

Despite the fact that almost the entire planet was covered with ice, this area remained ice-free. A large number of living beings lived here. The soils of this area were rich in nutrients, so there was abundance of plants. Caves created by nature were used by people and animals as shelters. For living beings, it was a real paradise.

According to some scientists, in the "Garden of Eden" lived no more than a hundred people, which is why humans do not have as much genetic diversity as most other species. However, this theory has not found scientific evidence.

1. How many ice ages were there?
2. How does the Ice Age relate to Biblical history?
3. What part of the earth was covered with ice?
4. How long did the Ice Age last?
5. What do we know about frozen mammoths?
6. How did the ice age affect humanity?

We have clear evidence that there was an ice age in the history of the Earth. We still see its traces to this day: glaciers and U-shaped different valleys, along which the glacier retreated. Evolutionists claim that there were several such 2 periods, and each lasted twenty to thirty million years (or so).

They were interspersed with relatively warm interglacial intervals, accounting for about 10% of the total time. The last ice age began two million years ago and ended eleven thousand years ago. Creationists, for their part, generally believe that the Ice Age began shortly after the Flood and lasted less than a thousand years. We will see later that the biblical story of the Flood offers a convincing explanation for this the only ice age. For evolutionists, however, the explanation of any ice age is associated with great difficulties.

The oldest ice ages?

Based on the principle "the present is the key to understanding the past", evolutionists argue that there is evidence for early ice ages. However, the difference between the rocks of different geological systems and the features of the landscape of the present period is very large, and their similarity is insignificant3-5. Modern glaciers, as they move, grind the rock and create deposits consisting of fragments of various sizes.

These conglomerates, called style or tillite, form a new breed. The abrasive action of the rocks enclosed in the thickness of the glacier forms parallel furrows in the rocky base along which the glacier moves - the so-called striation. When the glacier thaws slightly in summer, stone “dust” is released, which is washed into glacial lakes, and alternating coarse-grained and fine-grained layers form on their bottom (phenomenon seasonal layering).

Sometimes a piece of ice with boulders frozen into it breaks off from a glacier or ice sheet, falls into such a lake and melts. That is why huge boulders are sometimes found in layers of fine-grained sediments at the bottom of glacial lakes. Many geologists argue that all these patterns are also observed in ancient rocks, and, therefore, not when there were other, earlier ice ages on the earth. However, there is a number of evidence that the facts of observations are misinterpreted.

Effects present of the ice age still exist today: first of all, these are giant ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland, alpine glaciers, and numerous changes in the shape of the landscape of glacial origin. Since we observe all these phenomena on the modern Earth, it is obvious that the Ice Age began after the Flood. During the Ice Age, huge ice sheets covered Greenland, much of North America (as far north as the United States), and northern Europe from Scandinavia to England and Germany (see figure on pages 10–11).

On the tops of the North American Rocky Mountains, the European Alps and other mountain ranges, ice caps remain unmelted, and extensive glaciers descend along the valleys almost to their very foot. In the Southern Hemisphere, the ice sheet covers most of Antarctica. Ice caps lie on the mountains of New Zealand, Tasmania and the highest peaks in southeastern Australia. The Southern Alps of New Zealand and the South American Andes still have glaciers, while the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales and Tasmania still have glacier-formed landscapes.

Almost all textbooks say that during the Ice Age the ice advanced and retreated at least four times, and there were periods of warming between glaciations (the so-called "interglacials"). Trying to discover the cyclic pattern of these processes, geologists have suggested that more than twenty glaciations and interglacials have occurred in two million years. However, the appearance of dense clayey soils, old river terraces, and other phenomena that are considered evidence of numerous glaciations can be more legitimately considered as consequences of various phases. the only ice age after the Flood.

ice age and man

Never, even during the most severe glaciations, did ice cover more than a third of the earth's surface. At the very time when glaciation was taking place in the polar and temperate latitudes, it was probably raining heavily closer to the equator. They abundantly irrigated even those regions where waterless deserts extend today - the Sahara, the Gobi, Arabia. Archaeological excavations have unearthed abundant evidence of abundant vegetation, active human activity and sophisticated irrigation systems in the now barren lands.

Evidence has also been preserved that throughout the entire ice age, people lived at the edge of the ice sheet in Western Europe - in particular, Neanderthals. Many anthropologists now admit that some of the "bestiality" of Neanderthals was largely due to diseases (rickets, arthritis) that pursued these people in the cloudy, cold and damp European climate of that time. Rickets was common due to poor nutrition and lack of sunlight to stimulate the synthesis of vitamin D, which is essential for normal bone development.

With the exception of very unreliable dating methods (cf. « What does radiocarbon dating show?» ), there is no reason to deny that Neanderthals could have been contemporaries of the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Babylon that flourished in the southern latitudes. The idea that the ice age lasted seven hundred years is much more plausible than the hypothesis of two million years of glaciation.

The Flood Causes the Ice Age

In order for masses of ice to begin to accumulate on land, oceans in temperate and polar latitudes must be much warmer than the earth's surface - especially in summer. A large amount of water evaporates from the surface of warm oceans, which then moves towards the land. On cold continents, most precipitation falls as snow rather than rain; in summer this snow melts. Thus, ice builds up quickly. Evolutionary models that explain the ice age in terms of "slow and gradual" processes are untenable. Theories of long epochs speak of gradual cooling on the Earth.

But such a cooling would not have led to an ice age at all. If the oceans gradually cooled at the same time as the land, then after a while it would become so cold that the snow would cease to melt in summer, and the evaporation of water from the surface of the ocean could not provide enough snow to form massive ice sheets. The result of all this would not be an ice age, but the formation of a snowy (polar) desert.

But the Flood described in the Bible provided a very simple ice age mechanism. By the end of this global catastrophe, when hot underground waters poured into the antediluvian oceans, as well as a large amount of thermal energy released into the water as a result of volcanic activity, the oceans were most likely warm. Ord and Vardiman show that the waters of the oceans were indeed warmer immediately before the ice age, as evidenced by oxygen isotopes in the shells of tiny marine animals, the foraminifera.

Volcanic dust and aerosols released into the air from residual volcanic activity at the end of the Flood and after it reflected solar radiation back into space, causing a general, especially summer, cooling on Earth.

Dust and aerosols gradually left the atmosphere, but volcanic activity that continued after the Flood replenished their reserves for hundreds of years. Evidence of continued and widespread volcanism is the large amount of volcanic rock among the so-called Pleistocene sediments, which probably formed shortly after the Flood. Vardiman, using well-known information about the movement of air masses, showed that warm post-Flood oceans, combined with cooling at the poles, caused strong convection currents in the atmosphere, which gave rise to a huge hurricane zone over most of the Arctic. It persisted for more than five hundred years, right up to the glacial maximum (see the next section).

Such a climate led to the fallout in the polar latitudes of a large amount of snow masses, which quickly glacied and formed ice sheets. These shields first covered the land, and then, towards the end of the ice age, as the water cooled, they began to spread to the oceans.

How long did the ice age last?

Meteorologist Michael Ord calculated that it would have taken seven hundred years for the polar oceans to cool from a constant temperature of 30°C at the end of the Flood to today's temperature (averaging 4°C). It is this period that should be considered the duration of the ice age. Ice began to accumulate soon after the Flood. Approximately five hundred years later, the average temperature of the World Ocean dropped to 10 0 C, evaporation from its surface decreased significantly, and the cloud cover thinned out. The amount of volcanic dust in the atmosphere also decreased by this time. As a result, the surface of the Earth began to warm up more intensively by the sun's rays, and the ice sheets began to melt. Thus, the glacial maximum took place five hundred years after the Flood.

It is curious to note that references to this are found in the book of Job (37:9-10; 38:22-23, 29-30), which tells about events that most likely took place at the end of the ice age. (Job lived in the land of Uz, and Uz was a descendant of Shem - Genesis 10:23 - so most conservative Bible scholars believe that Job lived after the Babylonian Pandemonium but before Abraham.) God asked Job out of the storm: “From whose womb comes ice, and hoarfrost from heaven, who gives birth to him? The waters harden like stone, and the face of the deep freezes” (Job 38:29-30). These questions assume that Job knew, either directly or from historical/family tradition, what God was talking about.

These words probably refer to the climatic effects of the ice age, now unfelt in the Middle East. In recent years, the theoretical duration of the ice age has been substantially reinforced by the assertion that boreholes drilled into the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets contain many thousands of annual layers. These layers are clearly visible at the top of the wells and cores taken from them, which corresponds to the last few thousand years, which is to be expected if the layers represent annual snow deposits since the end of the ice age. Below, the so-called annual layers become less distinct, that is, most likely, they did not arise seasonally, but under the influence of other mechanisms - for example, individual hurricanes.

The burial and freezing of mammoth carcasses cannot be explained by uniformitarian/evolutionary hypotheses of "slow and gradual" cooling over millennia and gradual warming as well. But if frozen mammoths are a great mystery to evolutionists, then within the framework of the Flood/Ice Age theory, this is easily explained. Michel Ord believes that the burial and freezing of mammoths took place at the end of the post-Flood Ice Age.

Let us take into account that until the end of the ice age, the Arctic Ocean was warm enough that there were no ice sheets either on the surface of the water or in coastal valleys; this provided a fairly moderate climate in the coastal zone. It is important to note that the remains of mammoths are found in the greatest numbers in areas close to the coasts of the Arctic Ocean, while these animals also lived much south of the boundaries of the maximum distribution of ice sheets. Consequently, it was the distribution of ice sheets that determined the area of ​​mass mortality of mammoths.

Hundreds of years after the Flood, the waters of the oceans cooled noticeably, the air humidity over them decreased, and the coast of the Arctic Ocean turned into an arid climate, which led to droughts. Land appeared from under the melting ice sheets, from which masses of sand and mud rose in a whirlwind, burying many mammoths alive under them. This explains the presence of carcasses in decomposed peat containing loess- silt sediments. Some mammoths were buried standing up. The subsequent cooling again froze the oceans and the earth, as a result of which the mammoths, previously buried under sand and mud, froze, and have survived in this form to this day.

The animals that descended from the Ark multiplied on Earth over several centuries. But some of them died out without surviving the ice age and global climate change. Some, including mammoths, perished in the catastrophes that accompanied these changes. After the end of the ice age, the global precipitation regime changed again, many areas became deserts - as a result, the extinction of animals continued. The flood and the ice age that followed, volcanic activity and desertification radically changed the face of the Earth and caused the depletion of its flora and fauna to the present state. The surviving evidence best fits the biblical account of history.

Here is the Good News

Creation Ministries International strives to glorify and honor the Creator God, and to affirm the truth that the Bible describes the true story of the origin of the world and man. Part of this story is the bad news about Adam's violation of God's command. This brought death, suffering and separation from God into the world. These results are known to everyone. All of Adam's descendants are afflicted with sin from the moment of conception (Psalm 50:7) and share in Adam's disobedience (sin). They can no longer be in the presence of the Holy God and are doomed to separation from Him. The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and that all “will suffer punishment, eternal destruction, from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). But there is good news: God did not remain indifferent to our trouble. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”(John 3:16).

Jesus Christ, the Creator, being sinless, took upon Himself the blame for the sins of all mankind and their consequences - death and separation from God. He died on the cross, but on the third day he rose again, having conquered death. And now everyone who sincerely believes in Him, repents of his sins and relies not on himself, but on Christ, can return to God and be in eternal communion with his Creator. “He who believes in Him is not judged, but the unbeliever is already condemned, because he did not believe in the name of the Only Begotten Son of God”(John 3:18). Wonderful is our Savior and marvelous is salvation in Christ our Creator!