In Message 180 of 183 , whatever wrote:
"
Atlantisquest.com
The evidence of the violence of nature combined with stench of
rotting carcasses was staggering. The ice fields containing
these remains stretched for hundred of miles in every
direction (Hibben, 1946). Trees and animals, layers of peat
and mosses, twisted and mangled together like some giant
mixer had jumbled them some 10,000 years ago, and then froze
them into a solid mass. The evidence immediately suggests
an enormous tidal wave which raged over the land, tumbling
animals and vegetation within its mass, which was then
quick-frozen (Sanderson, 1960). But the extinction is not
limited to the Arctic."
Unfortunately, what Sanderson (1960) and Hibben (1946) stated above, along with similar claims by Ted Holden and other catastrophists, consists entirely of, as described by another geologist, "geopoetry" that exists only in their imagination. Since Hibben (1946) and Sanderson (1960) published their interpretations, additional detailed study of the so-called thick blanket of "muck deposits" claimed to cover the majority of the of the Arctic landscape, have shown that these deposits; the "Trees and animals, layers of peat and mosses, twisted and mangled together..."; and other evidence of catastrophism described by both authors are nonexistent and are nothing more than fiction generated by careless to nonexistent field fieldwork, sloppy reasoning, and vivid imaginations on their part.
Instead of being evidence of any tsunami, the above web page is a classic example of how remarkably ill-infomed the authors of the "Paleontological Testimony" web page are of Pleistocene geology and paleontology. Had the person(s), who wrote the web page, bothered to consult publications describing the Quaternary geology of Alaska and Siberia published in the **44 years** since Sanderson (1960) published his article in the Saturday Evening Post and **58 years** since Hibben (1946) published his paper, the Pleistocene strata, on which both authors based their interpretations, have been studied and described in great detail by numerous geologists, i.e. Pewe (1955, 1975a, 1975b, 1989), Pewe et al. (1997), Ukraintseva (1993) Westgate et al. (1990), and many others. If a person would read these papers, along those comprising all of volume 60, issue 1 of the 2003 "Quaternary Research" and collected in Edwards et al. (1997), they find that the evidence used by Sanderson (1960), Hibben (1946), and the "The Paleontological Testimony" to make their arguments for a tsunami is either imaginary or grossly misrepresented or misinterpreted to fit a preconceived idea of what they believed happened.
For example, the surficial deposits of Alaska, which Hibben (1946) described as "muck" consists of seven well-defined and mappable layers that, in total, are only 10 to 20 m thick at most as shown in figures 20 and 27 of Pewe (1975a), figure 4 of Pewe et al. (1997), and the measured sections of Westgate et al. (1990). These layers include the Ready Bullion Formation, Engineer Loess, Goldstream Formation, Gold Hill Loess, and the Fairbanks Loess, which consist of either wind-blown silt called "loess"; colluvium moved down-hill by slopewash; or solifluction deposits as discussed in detail by Pewe (1955, 1975a, 1975b, 1989), Pewe et al. (1997), and Westgate et al. (1990). None of these beds, contrary to the refuted interpretations of Sanderson (1960) and Hibben (1946), contain any evidence, i.e. the "twisted and mangled" remains of plants and animals, of them having been deposited by either tsunami or any other catastrophic process. Other layers, i.e. the Dawson Cut and Eva Formations, contain in place forest beds with upright rooted stumps that also lack any evidence of having been either deposited or buried by catastrophic processes of any sort as discussed by Pewe et al. (1997).
The so-called "muck" that Hibben (1946) observed consist only of **thin** deposits created by landslides and solifluction processes as the result of the melting of permafrost and the collapse of oversteepened slopes. These sediments are churned and the tree and plants found in them are twisted and mangled. However, the churning, mangling, and twisting are the result of processes that a person can see happening every year if they would only open their eyes and carefully examined what they are looking at with an open mind as Sanderson (1960) and Hibben (1946) both failed to do. At most, these deposits are only a few inches to a couple of feet thick and typically are only surface veneers covering undisturbed sediments and bedrock.
References Cited:
Edwards, M. E., Sher, A. V., and Guthrie, R. d., eds., 1997, Terrestrial
Paleoenvironmental Studies in Beringia. The Alaska Quaternary Center,
University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska.
Hibben, Frank, 1946, The Lost Americans," Thomas & Crowell Co., New York.
Pewe, T. L., 1955, Origin of the upland silt near Fairbanks, Alaska.
Geological Society of America Bulletin. vol. 66, no. 6, pp. 699-724.
Pewe, T. L., 1975a, Quaternary Geology of Alaska. U.S. Geological Survey
Professional Paper 835, 145 pp.
Pewe, T. L., 1975b, Quaternary Stratigraphic Nomenclature in Central
Alaska. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 862, 32 pp.
Pewe, T. L., 1989, Quaternary stratigraphy of the Fairbanks area, Alaska.
in Late Cenozoic History of the Interior Basins of Alaska and the Yukon.
U.S. Geological Survey Circular no. 1026, pp. 72-77.
Pewe, T. L., Berger, G. W., Westgate, J. A., Brown, P. A., and Leavitt,
S. W., 1997, Eva Interglacial Forest Bed, Unglaciated East-Central
Alaska. Geological Society of America Special Paper no. 319, 54 pp.
Sanderson, Ivan T., "Riddle of the Frozen Giants," Saturday Evening
Post , No. 39, January 16, 1960.
Ukraintseva, V. V. (1993) Vegetation Cover and Environment of the
"Mammoth Epoch" in Siberia. The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs of South
Dakota, 1800 Highway 18-Truck Route, Hot Springs, SD. 57747-0606,
309 pp.
Westgate, J. A., Stemper, B. A., and Pewe, T. L., 1990, A 3 m.y. record
of Pliocene-Pleistocene loess in interior Alaska. Geology. vol. 18,
no. 9, p. 858-861.
The table of contents for vol 60, issue 1 of "Quaternary Research" can be found by going to:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00335894
On that web page, issue 1 can be found by clicking the "Volume 60" link.
Yours,
Bill Birkeland
Houston, Texas
[This message has been edited by Bill Birkeland, 04-30-2004]
™ Version 4.2
