1961 cont.
Atlantis and the Ice Age, By Rene Malaise, D. Sc. (a summary) continued
Among results obtained by Russian scientists in the Arctic
Ocean on board the icebreaker Sadko, one dealing 1938
with investigations of the Crustacean bottom fauna and another with studies of
the bottom sediemtns, have a special significance to
our view of this ocean as formerly being land-locked. The Amhipods
and the Isopods of the bottom fauna are lacking pelagic larvae and spread
accordingly only slowly. Several endemic species were found, but, like the
already known species, they belong all to genera exclusively found in salt
water and on shallow depths. This indicates the waters of the Polar Basin
or basins originally was salt and later, during the
land-locked state, a dilutation of the surface waters
compelled the fauna to migrate deeper down. Atlantic forms without pelagic
larvae are lacking in the deeper basins of the Arctic
Ocean. A chemical study of the bottom sediments from the Arctic
Ocean, published in 1953, indicated that Atlantic waters entered the Arctic for the first time only 10-12,000 years ago, and
this influx of Atlantic waters increased 3,000-5,000 years ago. This estimation
of the time coincides with those of the ending of the Ice Age and of the
"Climatic Optimum". From the carbon-14 isotopic studies of wood form
the last Glacial advance at Mankato in North America we know the Ice Age ended 11,000 years ago.
The connection of the penetration of Atlantic waters into the Arctic
Ocean and the ending of the Ice Age can hardly be mere chance, but
is most probably of a profound importance as cause and effect. The sinking of
the ridge between Greenland and Europe over Iceland was not an isolated
occurrence. The same causes that were instrumentals in this
sinking, viz. The contraction forces caused by the cooling effect of the
ice-cold bottom waters, compelled also the previously
supra-marine Mid-Atlantic Ridge to sink. Geologists and Oceanographers have
not yet officially accepted that this latter ridge once reached above
water-level, though nobody has been able to explain away in a satisfactory way
the existence of the convincing proofs. There are especially two facts that are
hard to disclaim, viz. The different composition of the bottom sediments on
both sides of the Ridge, locally named Faraday Hills, published by C. S. Piggot in 1938, and the finds by the Swedish
"Albatross" Expedition of fresh water Diatom algae in the depression
on top of the Ridge itself, published by R.W. Kolbe in 1955. Piggot states that the sediments west of the Mid-Atlantic
Ridge consist almost exclusively of remains of pelagic Forminifera.
Only 60 kms. to the east and
on the other side of the Ridge the sediments, below a thin blanket of recent
Foraminifera ooze also occurring west of the Ridge, consisted of coarse sand
and gravel, almost without admixture of sediments of organic origin. This extreme differences in the nature of the bottom
sediments only 60 kms. from
one another and with both points inside the present course and expand of the
Gulf Stream indicates univocally that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge prevented the Gulf Stream to pass when the different sediments were
deposited. The thin covering blanket of ooze is quite recent and deposited
after the sinking of the Ridge. Before that, a cold marine current from the
north, carrying floating ice washed the eastern shores of the elevated Ridge.
As the ice was carried south and melted, sand and gravel was dropped from the
ice in such quantities that the sediments consist almost exclusively of
inorganic matters to the east of the submarine Ridge. This same cold current on
the eastern side of the Ridge could at times carry icebergs as far south as to
the Azores, also part of the same Ridge. This
is evidence from the finds of erratic blocks on the eastern side of the
Islands of Terceira and of Santa Maria in the Azores. With the present distribution of land and sea in
the North Atlantic floating ice follows the coasts of Labrador to meet the Gulf Stream south of New Foundland.
Here even the largest ice-bergs melt rapidly in the warm waters of this stream,
and even during the coldest glacial Epochs ice-bergs would hardly have
lasted in the also then warm current to reach the Azores, if the Gulf Stream then had had its present course. Even if they had done so the erratic blocks carried by the ice
would have been found on the northern or western shores of the islands and not
exclusively on the eastern. "
"Regarding the interpretation of the find of fresh
water diatoms some Swedish geologists have in personal correspondences pointed
out its great importance as an undeniable proof of the former subaerial existence of a fresh water lake on the Ridge. From
American oceanographic quarters an explanation has been advanced
according to which freshwater mud containing lacustric
Diatoms has been transported to the finding place by turbidity currents from
the African shores. According to this explanation an avalanche of water
soaked fluviatil mud would have rushed down the
African continental shelf, crossed in a body the hardly quite even oceanic
bottom of many hundred of kilometers expanse, then climbed up a slope of round
1000 meters, in the end to be dumped without admixture of any saltwater forms
in a place 990 kms. from the
nearest African Coast. Such an explanation would be just
as credible as if stated, with the present distribution of land and sea, the
mud had been transported by ice, travelling first with the Gulf Stream and then
with its prolongation's, the Canary Currents and the Tropical Guinea Current,
almost to the Equator. The ice would then have dropped the mud on top of a hill
belonging to the mid-Atlantic Ridge. In order to make questions on sunken
continents appear suspicious some scientists apparently think any explanation
may be creditable. For the present and until some acceptable counter-evidence
have been advanced the fact must be accepted the Mid-Atlantic Ridge has reached
above water level and subsequently sunken below the surface of the sea. Once
this fact is accepted we must revise our conception of many sciences related to
geography. "
It is not known how long the Ridge hindered, after the last
Ice Age, the Gulf Stream to cross it. The
author below will try to estimate the time of this crossing from other
evidences.
" The warm surface waters of an Ocean in the Tropics tend to
flow towards the poles, but, owing to centrifugal forces caused by the spinning
earth, their course is diverted to the east. In the Northern Hemisphere a
marine surface current will continue in a northeasterly
directions until it meets an obstacle. It has then to change its course.
When the Gulf Stream met the Atlantis Continent it followed its western coasts
in a northerly direction with only a minor part turning south and returning
towards Central America. The Greenland-Iceland
land-bridge then compelled the main current to turn westward towards Southern
Greenland and the Baffin Bay Region. Here its
direction was again changed to a southerly one. The warm waters of the Gulf Stream must have made the climate of all these
shores genial, even during the coldest Glacial Epochs. The Arctic
Ocean was at the same time almost permanently frozen. Along the
brim of this frozen polar expanse a strong easterly wind blew similarly to the
present easterly wind blowing along the brim of the Antarctic Continent. This
North Atlantic east wind brought humidity in large quantities in over the North
America Continent and fed thus the ice-sheets of Labrador and Keewatin at the
same time as the coasts of New England and
South-eastern New Foundland never were glaciated.
Free from inland-ice were probably then also the shores of Southern
Greenland?
A marine current from the pole will be subject to
retardation in its centrifugal movement and, also in the Northern Hemisphere,
thus tend to take a westerly course. This is because the further the water
moves from the pole the longer becomes its distance to the earth's axis and the
greater the speed of the earth's surface in its spinning movement. The cold
waters from the efflux of the Bafflin
Bay, the Arctic
Ocean, and the Baltic followed the eastern shores of the North
American and of the Atlantis Continents respectively. While the efflux through
the Denmark Straits must have existed already in Tertiary times the one between
the Faroe and the Shetland Islands may be of a
later date. The warm waters from the northeastern part of the tropical Atlantic moved also north and this current was deviated
into a northeasterly direction. Helpful in this deviation was the meeting cold
surface stream from the north along the eastern shores of Atlantis. At the same
time as the warm waters were pushed across the ocean basin towards the regions
of the Northwest Africa and Gibraltar the cold stream dived to continue south
beneath the warm waters. This warm current brought humidity to North Africa
and Europe as far as Scandinavia, and made the
present Saharan Desert inhabitable for man, cattle, elephants, and other big
game. The slight, but gradual cooling of the waters outside Gibraltar,
registered in the Mediterranean by fossils from the Tyrrhenian subtropical
fauna during the Mindel-Riss Interglacial to that of
a somewhat more temperate one in Post-Glacial times indicates an increasing
admixture of cold waters in the Northeastern Atlantic Basin. It may also be, the main body of the warm current gradually was forced to
take a more southerly course towards African shores. The Guinea Current
of today may constitute a remnant of this warm stream? With a warm sea west of
African Continent humidity was brought by westerly winds in over the continent
and could there be cooled and fall down in the shape of rain. Nowadays, the sea
west of North Africa is comparatively cold and
winds from there will become warmer when blowing over land. They will then be
able to hold more humidity and can hardly ever be cold enough to let down their
humidity as rain. That is the reason desert conditions now prevail in North Africa.
Atlantis and the Ice Age, By Rene Malaise, D. Sc. (a summary) continued 1961 3rd pg.
Home
Link
Previous Page Next Page
