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The age of the Antarctic Ice Cap questioned


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Many of you will remember my posts about Terra Australis Incognita being Plato's Atlantis. In essence, I argue that Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica were all part of this super continent, and that it was inhabited 12 000 years ago (see the summary here). That would imply that Antarctica would have been ice free at that time. Scientist have dated the age of the ice cap to several hundred thousand years, which would seemingly blow a big hole in my theory (there are several other aspects of my theory that nobody has been able to explain away so far).

It has been brought to my attention that the dating of the ice cap is not universally accepted, as for example argued here. Although the author of this article obviously has a different motive for questioning the age of the ice cap (he is a Creationist), the article nevertheless appears to have valid scientific arguments.

How do or did scientists respond to the issues highlighted in the article, if at all? Is anyone aware of similar articles in scientific circles (that question the age of the ice caps)? No scientist appears to have considered the possibility that the ice cap had developed following a comet or asteroid impact (at the Scotia plate) 12 000 years ago.

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No scientist appears to have considered the possibility that the ice cap had developed following a comet or asteroid impact (at the Scotia plate) 12 000 years ago.

Firstly, this is a hypothesis, not a theory.

Secondly - how could a "comet or asteroid" create the ice caps??

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Many of you will remember my posts about Terra Australis Incognita being Plato's Atlantis. In essence, I argue that Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica were all part of this super continent, and that it was inhabited 12 000 years ago (see the summary here). That would imply that Antarctica would have been ice free at that time. Scientist have dated the age of the ice cap to several hundred thousand years, which would seemingly blow a big hole in my theory (there are several other aspects of my theory that nobody has been able to explain away so far).

It has been brought to my attention that the dating of the ice cap is not universally accepted, as for example argued here. Although the author of this article obviously has a different motive for questioning the age of the ice cap (he is a Creationist), the article nevertheless appears to have valid scientific arguments.

How do or did scientists respond to the issues highlighted in the article, if at all? Is anyone aware of similar articles in scientific circles (that question the age of the ice caps)? No scientist appears to have considered the possibility that the ice cap had developed following a comet or asteroid impact (at the Scotia plate) 12 000 years ago.

My understanding is that serious mainstream scientists ignore the work of creationist scientists, for two main reasons: 1. creation scientists are pretty much looking for evidence to support a pre-determined theory (the age of the Earth as calculated according to a literal interpretation of the Old Testament), and 2. the work of creation scientists involves essentially no actual experimental work and almost all scanning of scientific literature for material to incorporate into their own works. Accordingly, before relying on the linked article, I strongly suggest you read the articles referenced to see if they're being accurately quoted.

Regarding the linked article itself, I note it was written in 1992, and contains no references later than 1990. Therefore the suggestion that the ice is up to 160,000 years old is way out of date. More recent ice cores (including from the Russian Vostok base) include ice which has been dated beyond 400,000 years. On top of that, ice core ages can be correlated to events other than volcanic eruptions, as claimed by the author.

Regarding your thought that the ice sheets might be as little as 12,000 years old, I'd suggest that's unlikely. For one thing, the ice cores display annual layers, and these layers can be counted way beyond 12,000 years into the past.

More importantly, though, the Antarctic ice sheet is much older than the ice it currently consists of. My understanding is that Antarctica began to ice up tens of millions of years ago. However the ice in the ice sheets is constantly on the move from near the centre of Antarctica to its edges, where it melts or calves. So even the oldest ice in Antarctica is much younger than the ice sheet as a whole.

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Firstly, this is a hypothesis, not a theory.

Secondly - how could a "comet or asteroid" create the ice caps??

If a comet had hit the earth as I postulate, the atmosphere around the world would have been filled with dust and the sun blocked out. With an impact crater at the Scotia plate, the sea would have boiled (as recorded in South American myths), and the steam and extreme cold would have resulted in a rapidly thickening ice cap.

As a matter of interest, in the summary, which has to be downloaded, I present other arguments as well. Firstly, it is inconceivable that an imaginary continent could have three shapes, namely a solid (can anyone suggest a better description?), a ring-shaped and a C-shaped continent. These three shaped clearly depict a continent of which the central plateau was slowly being flooded by the sea. Secondly, the ocean floor topography of New Zealand closely matches Schoner's map. Then we also have the bulge on the west coast of South America which appears on several medieval maps, and a mountain range of the exact shape and position on the ocean floor west of South America.

Can anyone explain these anomalies?

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Many of you will remember my posts about Terra Australis Incognita being Plato's Atlantis. In essence, I argue that Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica were all part of this super continent, and that it was inhabited 12 000 years ago (see the summary here). That would imply that Antarctica would have been ice free at that time. Scientist have dated the age of the ice cap to several hundred thousand years, which would seemingly blow a big hole in my theory (there are several other aspects of my theory that nobody has been able to explain away so far).

It has been brought to my attention that the dating of the ice cap is not universally accepted, as for example argued here. Although the author of this article obviously has a different motive for questioning the age of the ice cap (he is a Creationist), the article nevertheless appears to have valid scientific arguments.

How do or did scientists respond to the issues highlighted in the article, if at all? Is anyone aware of similar articles in scientific circles (that question the age of the ice caps)? No scientist appears to have considered the possibility that the ice cap had developed following a comet or asteroid impact (at the Scotia plate) 12 000 years ago.

Your basic understandings are so flawed that they are not even wrong.

Specify your impact crater on the Scotia Plate. With credible dating.

Please take the time to actually understand the timelines in regards to tectonic plate movement.

Please take the time to fully understand the Antarctic coring methodologies/analyses (Vostok, etc.).

Please take the time (and inferred thought processes) to distinguish between hemispherical climatic changes.

.

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Pfft, Swede. If you're going to insist on people /actually/ knowing things that they postulate about here, you'll decrease traffic by a good, solid 98%. Next you'll be suggesting people read and think critically, too.

--Jaylemurph

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Pfft, Swede. If you're going to insist on people /actually/ knowing things that they postulate about here, you'll decrease traffic by a good, solid 98%. Next you'll be suggesting people read and think critically, too.

--Jaylemurph

Critical thinking...and the restraint to jump to the wildest, improvable conclusions without any real evidence...is a lost art nowadays.

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Your basic understandings are so flawed that they are not even wrong.

Would you care to comment on the other issues I raised, or do you prefer just to ignore them?

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Would you care to comment on the other issues I raised, or do you prefer just to ignore them?

With the greatest of respect, would you care to comment on the issues I raised in my post...? Or, for that matter, the points raised by Swede.

Edited by Peter B
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With the greatest of respect, would you care to comment on the issues I raised in my post...? Or, for that matter, the points raised by Swede.

I am fully aware that there is an anomaly, and I admit that I do not know how to reconcile the two sides - at present. I actually spent quite a lot of time studying the ice core dating techniques. However, if science is absolutely right and the ice cap is hundreds of thousands of years old, you have to accept the following:

1. That Terra Australis was indeed an invention by medieval cartographers who believed that the land mass in the north had to be balanced by a similar land mass in the south. If that is the case, how could three completely imaginary continent shapes have come into existence, which clearly seem to be related? See the image below.

Figure-1.7-Flooding-Sequence.jpg

2. That there is no correlation between the New Zealand ocean floor topography and Schoner's C-shaped TA map (below).

Figure-1.9-NASA-Topo---Australia.jpg

And a host of others, such as Mercator's lake in the middle of the Sahara desert, of which the remains are clearly visible on satellite images.

Lakes%20in%20Green%20Sahara%20-%20Riaan%20Booysen.jpg

All nothing more than imagination?

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If a comet had hit the earth as I postulate, the atmosphere around the world would have been filled with dust and the sun blocked out. With an impact crater at the Scotia plate, the sea would have boiled (as recorded in South American myths), and the steam and extreme cold would have resulted in a rapidly thickening ice cap.

Since the Scotia Plate is south of South America, the boiling seas would only be evident to those living on the southern tip of South America.

Do any of the myths come from that region?

Further, if a comet did hit the Scotia Plate, there would have been a tsunami. Is there any flood myths that coincide with the time of the supposed comet hit?

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As a matter of interest, in the summary, which has to be downloaded, I present other arguments as well. Firstly, it is inconceivable that an imaginary continent could have three shapes, namely a solid (can anyone suggest a better description?), a ring-shaped and a C-shaped continent.

Whoa boy. I really believe you should take a step back and read what you are posting. For instance, yes I, as well as other very intelligent people I know, believe that it is 'conceivable that an imaginary continent could have three shapes'. Actually, my very intelligent friends and I have concluded (formed an hypothesis if you will and as a side note, were hoping you would test our hypothesis to derive a theory, but that's another topic of conversation) that an imaginary continent could not only have three shapes, it could also support only green been and cocoa vegetation, as well as African Swallows and highland gorilla habitats. Ok, now go to work.

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For instance, yes I, as well as other very intelligent people I know, believe that it is 'conceivable that an imaginary continent could have three shapes'.

Thanks for your valuable opinion. How would very intelligent people like yourself interpret Mercator's lake in the middle of the Sahara desert, in the exact location where geographical evidence of such a lake exists?

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Thanks for your valuable opinion. How would very intelligent people like yourself interpret Mercator's lake in the middle of the Sahara desert, in the exact location where geographical evidence of such a lake exists?

Wherein you are either not well informed or intellectually dishonest, because the river and lakes you see there is supposed to be the Nile and the course is based on the description of Ptolemy. We know that that description was haphazard at best.

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The evidence from paleomagnetism is quite clear that none of the 3 land masses you mention have traveled far in the last 12,000 years.

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This is in the opening section of the link:

This inhabited continent was destroyed by a comet which struck the earth immediately south of South America, leaving only the areas known as Tierra del Fuego, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica above water.

Do you realize an impact of that nature would kill all life on Earth? It would probably melt the Earth. Most living things would find that a serious issue.

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And a host of others, such as Mercator's lake in the middle of the Sahara desert, of which the remains are clearly visible on satellite images.

Apparently Riann you've done little research into lakes being in the middle of the Sahara as science is already aware of several which existed in ancient times such as Megalake Ahnet-Mouydir, Chotts Megalake, Megafezzan, Megachad, the Darfur Megalake as well as Egypts Megalake. The real question is why are you, as appears, comparing such with the fantasy of cartographers of earlier centuries?

cormac

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I am fully aware that there is an anomaly, and I admit that I do not know how to reconcile the two sides - at present. I actually spent quite a lot of time studying the ice core dating techniques. However, if science is absolutely right and the ice cap is hundreds of thousands of years old, you have to accept the following:

1. That Terra Australis was indeed an invention by medieval cartographers who believed that the land mass in the north had to be balanced by a similar land mass in the south. If that is the case, how could three completely imaginary continent shapes have come into existence, which clearly seem to be related? See the image below.

Figure-1.7-Flooding-Sequence.jpg

We have a much better understanding of how ice cap change throughout the year. What we see on our modern maps is what can be seen for only a week or so in march each year. If these early explorers found terra australis in september, they would be around the yearly maximum, something like that:

S_bm_extent.png

And they took their data back in the little Ice Age, the ice cap they witnessed may have been even larger. So depending at which moment of the year they sighted the continent, confonding floating ice for land, then extrapolating what was beyond the few point reported, and you get a landmass that change alot from map to map.

Edited by Gingitsune
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The real question is why are you, as appears, comparing such with the fantasy of cartographers of earlier centuries?

cormac

I think the real question is how it would have been possible for any of those cartographers to imagine a lake at precisely the place where an ancient lake once existed. In fact, that lake was probably filled with water when the Sahara still experienced significant rainfall - see for instance this article. My theory is that when the comet /asteroid struck the earth (it may in fact have been at an oblique angle, causing it to bounce off into space again), it dramatically altered the climate of the earth. The ice age set in, and the Sahara savannah began disappearing. The key point is that maps appear to have existed of the Sahara region before the impact, and that the medieval cartographers must have obtained copies of these maps. This also applies to the bulge on the west coast of South America as shown on several maps. It is very coincidental that there is an mountain ridge on the ocean floor in exactly this position, and of the same shape.

Should such maps have existed, in other words northern Africa was inhabited by people capable of creating such maps thousands of years before the Sahara had turned into a desert, it re-opens the whole issue of the rain erosion of the Sphinx ...

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We have a much better understanding of how ice cap change throughout the year. What we see on our modern maps is what can be seen for only a week or so in march each year. If these early explorers found terra australis in september, they would be around the yearly maximum, something like that:

And they took their data back in the little Ice Age, the ice cap they witnessed may have been even larger. So depending at which moment of the year they sighted the continent, confonding floating ice for land, then extrapolating what was beyond the few point reported, and you get a landmass that change alot from map to map.

I am not quite sure what you mean - these maps existed long Antarctica was first sighted around 1820 CE (see Wikipedia article). In other words, there were no medieval expeditions that could have led to these maps.

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I think the real question is how it would have been possible for any of those cartographers to imagine a lake at precisely the place where an ancient lake once existed. In fact, that lake was probably filled with water when the Sahara still experienced significant rainfall - see for instance this article. My theory is that when the comet /asteroid struck the earth (it may in fact have been at an oblique angle, causing it to bounce off into space again), it dramatically altered the climate of the earth. The ice age set in, and the Sahara savannah began disappearing. The key point is that maps appear to have existed of the Sahara region before the impact, and that the medieval cartographers must have obtained copies of these maps. This also applies to the bulge on the west coast of South America as shown on several maps. It is very coincidental that there is an mountain ridge on the ocean floor in exactly this position, and of the same shape.

Should such maps have existed, in other words northern Africa was inhabited by people capable of creating such maps thousands of years before the Sahara had turned into a desert, it re-opens the whole issue of the rain erosion of the Sphinx ...

Your hypothesis has no basis in fact as the Sahara exhibited its savannah/steppe period from c.8500 BC to c.3500 BC with some areas lasting as long as c.2500 BC. The last glacial period ended c.10,000 BC while some parts of the megalakes lasted as recently as c.3000 BP/1000 BC.

cormac

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... lakes being in the middle of the Sahara as science is already aware of several which existed in ancient times.

The real question is why are you, as appears, comparing such with the fantasy of cartographers of earlier centuries?

cormac

Really?

You see it like this: science is nowadays 'allready' aware about the lakes, in contrast with Mercator who was fantasizing?

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Really?

You see it like this: science is nowadays 'allready' aware about the lakes, in contrast with Mercator who was fantasizing?

Let's look at Mercatur's level of 'accuracy' or lack thereof, shall we:

post-74391-0-64934200-1399206661_thumb.j

The red circles are where Mercatur places lakes in western Africa. There is no evidence of any lake where he placed them and the paleolakes that ARE in evidence are at least 250 miles away.

cormac

Edited by cormac mac airt
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Let's look at Mercatur's level of 'accuracy' or lack thereof, shall we:

post-74391-0-64934200-1399206661_thumb.j

The red circles are where Mercatur places lakes in western Africa. There is no evidence of any lake where he placed them and the paleolakes that ARE in evidence are at least 250 miles away.

cormac

None of the medieval maps is that accurate. However, Mercator does show a huge lake in the Sahara at more or less that location. If you look at the topographical maps of Africa, you'll notice that there is a lake of similar size (which I have coloured blue). What would have possessed Mercator to draw a lake in that region, if it was not know to have existed before?

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Let's look at Mercatur's level of 'accuracy' or lack thereof, shall we:

post-74391-0-64934200-1399206661_thumb.j

The red circles are where Mercatur places lakes in western Africa. There is no evidence of any lake where he placed them and the paleolakes that ARE in evidence are at least 250 miles away.

cormac

Geographical accuracy as we expect nowadays is indeed different for Mercator maps, agree.

But that has not that much to do with mentionning things that aren't there supposed to be imo.

His maps were primarily used for navigating.

But I would find it rather curious that the lakes drawn in his maps are mere fantasy.

He would have known f.e. he's drawing lakes in a dessert I assume? I tend to believe he drawed what was known then: there are lakes in the dessert (even at the time he was drawing the map), or at least his older sources for the map would have mentionned lakes if he was relying on them (in case no more recent sources or testimonies).

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