mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ 
For complete access to all the files of this collection
	see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php 
==========================================================
Icecore and other related dating schemes:
Part VI

Present melting rates of Greenland icecaps indicate they would not have
survived the hipsothermal:

In essence, the condition described by Pat Epps, in which the snow-firn
layer was saturated with water, occurs over the entire icecap every summer
and contaminates all the ice. But what no one has discussed regarding ice
cores, as far as I know, is the period known as the hipsithermal, which
lasted from 8,000 to about 2,800 years ago, when the temperature was
greater by 4 to 5 F.34 According to P. Borisov, a meteorology and
climatology professor at Leningrad State University:

During the last 18,000 years, the warming was particularly
appreciable during the Middle Holocene. This covered the time
period of 9,000 to 2,500 years ago and culminated about 6,000 to
4,000 years ago, i.e., when the first pyramids were already
being built in Egypt. It should be noted that the dating of the
beginning of the culmination of warming varies. [H.] Gross dates
it at about 7,500 years ago, [with] the culmination [lasting]
until 4,500 years ago; whereas, according to M. A. Lavrova, the
culmination began about 6,000 years ago...[and] lasted until
4,000 years ago.

The most perturbing questions of the stage under consideration
are: Was the Arctic Basin iceless during the culmination of the
optimum?...What was, in relation to this, the reaction of the
climatic conditions on the continents?

Many scientists hold that, during the climatic optimum, the Arctic Basin
was free of ice. C. Brooks substantiates his assertion by the fact that
there was a relatively rich flora and no ice on Spitsbergen; there were
warm water [mollusks] and the temperature of the open Arctic Basin and its
coast was higher than it is today. At the same time, a [2 to 2.5 C] rise
in...the surface water [for the mollusks to live] and of the layer of air
nearest [to] the ground...has been very well demonstrated by a number of
independently conducted studies using different methods.

The permafrost, which covers the Arctic Basin, greatly deteriorated during
the period of its warming. Thus, in the north and northwest of Siberia,
the melting reached a depth of [200 to 300 meters]. The mountain glaciers
diminished considerably and, in some places, disappeared altogether.

How did the climate react to the disappearance of ice in the Arctic Basin?

The vegetative zones advanced toward the pole. On the Eurasian continent,
this latitudinal shift amounted to [4 to 5] in the west and to [1 to 2] in
the east. Some plant species advanced their northern boundaries as much as
1,000 [kilometers]. Forests extended right up to the Barents Coast and the
oak linden and filbert reached the shores of the White Sea. The
information available warrants the assumption that, on the European
continent, the tundra and forest-tundra zones disappeared completely. In
the northern part of Asia, plant fossils were found only 80 [kilometers]
from Cape Chelyuskin and peat-moss was discovered on Novaya Zemlya.

In Inner Alaska and the Yukon, the absolute age of the peat deposits is
estimated at 5,000 years. Hornwort has been found in deposits 5,400 years
old, in northeast Canada, at a latitude of [64 19"N] and longitude [102
4"W]. Now hornwort only extends to latitude [59 14"N, a difference of 350
miles]....

The culmination of the climate optimum of the Middle Holocene began to
fade 4,000 years ago, and the ice sheet of Arctic Basin began to reappear
about 3,000 years ago.35 (Emphasis added.)

Velikovsky also documented warmer climate, up to the last catastrophe he
described 2,800 years ago.36 According to C. E. P. Brooks, the
hipsithermal ended in one year with a climate catastrophe:

Then came an unusually...cold winter, the icecap obtained a
footing, and perhaps in the course of a single season, covered
the greater part of the Arctic Ocean. The result was a sudden
great change in the climate of Europe; the conditions of today
came in "with the appearance of a catastrophe." The icecap, once
formed, kept the winter temperature below the critical point by
its own power of persistence.37

Since the Arctic climate, from around 8,000 to 2,800 years ago, was much
warmer than at present and underwent a catastrophic end, this means that
every summer, if there was an icecap covering Greenland prior to
Velikovsky's catastrophe, it had to melt even more strongly, for longer
summer periods, starting more to the north than at present, but the amount
of the melting occurred during the entire period of Velikovsky's
catastrophic scenarios. This precludes that any uncontaminated signal of
the climate could be derived from any ice of this period in Greenland. Ice
melts for seven to eight weeks at Thule presently. Because it was warmer
during this period, both the ice and the snow-firn layer had to have
melted much more than at present. In KRONOS, Rose showed that one must
drill in a region of little to no summer melting so as to meet acceptable
criteria to evaluate climate from ice layers. Rose stated one of the drill
site requirements for proper analysis of the climate records: "It had to
be at a spot far enough north that there was negligible summer melting."38

Based on all of the above, there would have been extensive summer melting
on the entire Greenland icecap from 8,000 to 2,800 years ago, or during
the entire period of Velikovsky's catastrophes, if the icecaps existed.
But Ellenberger and Mewhinney are oblivious to this, saying that they will
determine climate evidence from ice that experts say should not show
extensive summer melting. As Hans Oeschger explained, the Dye 3 ice core
exhibited temperature "changes during the Wisconsin [Ice Age, which] need
further confirmation by measurements on other ice cores to exclude
artifacts due to melt layers."39 (Emphasis added.)

This authority on ice cores claims that one must not assume temperature
regimes from ice cores that have formed in areas of melt. However, long
before the more northern cores were drilled in Greenland, Ellenberger and
Mewhinney claimed that they knew the temperatures from cores which
Oeschger had said needed confirmation.

Therefore, even if the icecap existed before then, which I strongly doubt
because of the ancient maps, the case presented by Ellenberger and
Mewhinney ignores the fundamental evidence of possible melting
contamination. Furthermore, since this climatic optimum period encompassed
the entire globe, then the same conditions had to pertain to the Antarctic
icecap.

Now, not only does water percolating through the snow-firn porous layers
contaminate the snow and firn with false readings of oxygen-16 and
oxygen-18, it also dilutes acids in the snow and firn layers. That is, if
acid is introduced from volcanic activity in the northern hemisphere and
is incorporated into snow which falls on the icecap, then it must not be
diluted with water in order to remove it from its original position in the
snow and firn layers. But yearly summer melting may do that, destroy the
original acid signal and, maybe, deposit dilute acid elsewhere. Thus, any
acid signal found in the layers is of dubious origin.

In Part I of Sean Mewhinney's "Ice Cores and Common Sense," he stated that
volcanic aerosols from many well-known eruptions have left acidity markers
in the Greenland ice, including those from "a major eruption at Candlemas
Island roughly 3,200 years ago."40

Of great importance is the accurate dating of tephra, clastic material
ejected from volcanoes, so as to definitively date volcanic eruptions.
These are dated by themoluminescence and by other methods. According to
Glenn W. Berger, "no single, reliable, physical dating technique has been
available for the time range from a few hundred years up to several
hundred thousand years for both distal and proximal tephra layers."41

As late as January, 1992, the dating of volcanic eruptions was known not
to be completely reliable. Despite what Ellenberger and Mewhinney claim,
approximate dates given by different methods do not legitimize the
methods; unreliable methods remain unreliable even when their results tend
to agree.

Mewhinney omitted Bernard Newgrosh's evidence: "Nor do the ice cores
record the largest `frost signature' in the BC record in the Mount St.
Helens eruption, whose ash is radiocarbon-dated to c. 2035 BC."42
Mewhinney and Ellenberger suggested that volcanic eruptions in the
latitudes of Mount St. Helen leave an acid signal in the Greenland icecap.
But, as Newgrosh showed, such is not the case. If Velikovsky's acidic
signatures are missing because, as Mewhinney and Ellenberger claim, they
never happened, then where is the acid signature from a major
4,000-year-old eruption? Are we to also assume it never happened? If the
ice cores were really accurate, this acid signal should have been
detected.

I believe that this volcanic signal made before Velikovsky's catastrophe
was not detected because the deeper ice was not built up gradually, but
rapidly and catastrophically. If the build-up was gradual, the signal
would have been detected. This is not a small point, but, as we will see,
the truly major points of evidence against what Ellenberger and Mewhinney
suggest cannot be explained away.

If the icecaps were built up suddenly, the acid and dust would have been
deposited all through the ice and not at just one level. This is the
fundamental error made by Ellenberger and Mewhinney. They have maintained,
in the face of accurate maps of Greenland and Antarctica, that there
existed immense icecaps over these land masses before Velikovsky's Venus
catastrophe.

But the maps indicate that there were no major continental icecaps in
these regions and, therefore, the icecaps were created in a short
catastrophic event--not in tens or hundreds of thousands of years, but in
less than a year. This is, I believe, the crux of the debate. If the
icecaps were created as Velikovsky's scenario suggests, there should be
clear evidence of this fact and that evidence should contradict the
uniformitarian analysis and concept Ellenberger and Mewhinney have
presented.

There is a more important reason for being skeptical about volcanic acid,
particularly during the period of Velikovsky's scenario. One of the basic
premises of glaciologists is that they believe they know exactly which
specific, ancient acid signal in the ice core belongs to a specific,
ancient volcanic eruption (2,000 to 7,000 years old). But this is based
purely on assumption. They cannot know with certainty whether or not this
is the case because volcanic tephra dating techniques are not completely
reliable. The glaciologists' entire concept is based on circular
reasoning.

I had pointed out to Ellenberger, while in Canada, that the volcanologists
claimed the acid signal reported by Mewhinney for Santor¡ni (Thera) was 15
times greater than Santor¡ni could produce. So how can anyone claim to
know the origin of any acid signal?! When we are forced to go back into
ancient times--when precise reports of volcanic activity outside the
civilized world were neither reported nor dated reliably--one can only
guess which acid signal comes from which volcano.

This point is made specifically clear by Walter Sullivan in a New York
Times article:

"Fifty-seven of 69 [volcanic] events
recorded [in the Greenland ice core] for the last 2,000 years
were matched with known eruptions."43

This means that over 18% of the eruptions are traced to unknown volcanic
events. However, in the deeper ice, from 2,000 to 7,000 years ago, during
the events of Velikovsky's scenario where this evidence is supposedly
crucial, the correlation of acid signals with known volcanic eruptions was
"only [30%] of the older record to 7000 BC."44

That is, 70% of the volcanic signals are of unknown origin. When seven out
of ten signals are of unknown origin, there is a clear probability that
the signals found in the ice may have originated from one of the seven
unknown volcanic events. The entire case reflects circular reasoning.

Sullivan is very careful to use terms which indicate that the precision
related to the correlations is not truly known: "Ash believed to have
come....A prominent ash layer at a depth corresponding to 4083 BC may have
come from....[T]he one believed to have occurred at Santor¡ni....[T]here
are exceptions to known acid signals in the ice core....The earliest
exactly dated eruption was that of Vesuvius...in AD 79."45 This careful
use of words reflects exactly what I presented above.

By circular reasoning, each piece is fit into place. Ellenberger and
Mewhinney have simply ignored this approach so as to provide us with their
interpretation of data which is not proven.

Sullivan has told us that, between 2,000 and 7,000 years ago--when
Velikovsky's catastrophes had to have occurred, 70% of the volcanic acid
signals cannot be matched with anything! Yet Ellenberger and Mewhinney
suggest that such a record can clearly disprove Velikovsky's hypothesis.
With 70% of the volcanic acid signal correlation missing during
Velikovsky's catastrophic timeframe, very little is secure and the
evidence touted by Ellenberger and Mewhinney proves either extremely
inconclusive or without real merit. For example, Hapgood presented a list
of glacial eruptions based on radiocarbon dates in The Path of the Pole.46
Here is an abbreviated sample:

Date (Years)    Place

8,620  ñ 350    Japan
11,520 ñ 400    Japan
11,720 ñ 220    Japan
12,750 ñ 350    Montana, United States
13,800 ñ 300    Costa Rica

It is clear that, with eruption value variations between 220 to 400 years,
the dating of volcanic eruptions is anything but precise. Yet Ellenberger
and Mewhinney say that the volcanic eruptions are precisely dated. Why did
they not give the tephra dates for the supposedly known volcanic
eruptions--which happened between 2,000 and 7,000 years ago--and, more
importantly, the variation range for these dates based on radiocarbon
dating, thermoluminescence, or another dating method? If they had, I
believe that their assertions about the accuracy of this evidence would
crumble.

Let us put this evidence to a uniformitarian analysis. "During the 20th
century, there have been eruptions in 1908, 1911, 1918, 1923, 1928, 1942,
1947, 1949, 1950, 1955 and 1971, plus Mount St. Helens and Mount Pinatuba,
which occurred after 1971."47

There are 13 eruptions per century. If we put half of the eruptions in the
northern hemisphere and half in the southern hemisphere, then there are
6.5 eruptions in the northern hemisphere that may be found in the
Greenland icecap and in tree ring chronologies. When we apply this known
figure to the period between 2800 BP and 3500 BP, we would expect to have
this same average number of eruptions going on for seven centuries. Let us
now date these eruptions via carbon-14 analysis, with a plus-minus
tolerance of 100 years.

Now, so as to be over 95% accurate, this requires two standard deviations
of plus-minus 100 years; in other words, plus-minus 200 years or a
400-year range for any dated volcanic eruption. This means that, for any
dated volcanic eruption, there are 6.5 times four centuries, or 26 other
volcanic eruptions that could be dated for the one chosen. Let us, then,
remove 30% of all 26 volcanic eruptions that fit into this period (since
70% are of unknown origin) as possibly being linked to supposedly known
volcanic events.

This comes out to eight volcanic events removed from consideration, but
also leaves us with 18 other volcanic events, each of which is of an
unknown and an undated eruption, and each of which could be the one that
actually occurred in place of the eight accepted events. All of this means
that the Santorini volcano, which is supposed to have erupted in -1628 and
to have left an acid signal in the Greenland icecap, as well as frost
damage in tree rings of southwestern Bristlecone pines and Irish oaks,
could just have easily been the effect of one of the 18 other volcanic
eruptions that have never been discovered. 

In fact, the same analysis fits every supposedly known volcanic eruption
for the 700-year period under discussion. Even if we cut this number in
half, we still find that any of nine unknown eruptive signals in the
Greenland ice core could be responsible for the one that has been
assigned.

Therefore, it is unrealistic and irrational to propose that the signals in
the Greenland icecap, from this period of time, correlate with precisely
dated volcanic eruptions since volcanic eruptions from this period cannot
be precisely, nor even remotely, dated when any one signal in the ice core
could have originated from 18 other unknown eruptions.

How can anyone know that a volcanic signal found at one layer is precisely
related to a known eruption without also reasoning that the ice core and
the dating of volcanic eruptions are perfectly accurate? Since we are told
that the dating of volcanic eruptions is not completely reliable, the acid
signals of unknown origin become a significant impediment to concluding
anything about the era of Velikovsky's catastrophes.

It may very well be that the oxygen-16 and oxygen-18 layers are created by
gas diffusion and that the volcanic signals come from other eruptions than
those suggested, even from subsurface oceanic volcanoes that have never
been fully evaluated for past eruption histories.
<>