Ice Age Border. Ice Age on Earth

Let's consider such a phenomenon as periodic ice ages on Earth. In modern geology, it is generally accepted that our Earth periodically experiences Ice Ages in its history. During these eras, the Earth's climate becomes sharply colder, and the Arctic and Antarctic polar caps monstrously increase in size. Not so many thousands of years ago, as we were taught, vast areas of Europe and North America were covered with ice. Eternal ice lay not only on the slopes of high mountains, but also covered the continents in a thick layer even in temperate latitudes. Where the Hudson, Elbe and Upper Dnieper flow today was a frozen desert. All this looked like an endless glacier that now covers the island of Greenland. There are signs that the retreat of the glaciers was stopped by new ice masses and that their boundaries varied at different times. Geologists can determine the boundaries of glaciers. Traces of five or six successive movements of ice during the ice age, or five or six ice ages, have been discovered. Some force pushed the ice layer towards moderate latitudes. To this day, neither the reason for the appearance of glaciers nor the reason for the retreat of the ice desert is known; the timing of this retreat is also a matter of debate. Many ideas and conjectures have been put forward to explain how the Ice Age arose and why it ended. Some believed that the Sun emitted more or less heat at different times, which explained periods of heat or cold on Earth; but we do not have sufficient evidence that the Sun is such a "changing star" as to accept this hypothesis. The cause of the ice age is seen by some scientists as a decrease in the initially high temperature of the planet. Warm periods between glacial periods were associated with heat released from the supposed decomposition of organisms in layers close to the earth's surface. Increases and decreases in hot spring activity were also taken into account.

Many ideas and conjectures have been put forward to explain how the Ice Age arose and why it ended. Some believed that the Sun emitted more or less heat at different times, which explained periods of heat or cold on Earth; but we do not have sufficient evidence that the Sun is such a "changing star" as to accept this hypothesis.

Others have argued that there are colder and warmer zones in outer space. As our solar system passes through cold regions, ice moves down latitude closer to the tropics. But no physical factors have been discovered that create such cold and warm zones in space.

Some have wondered whether precession, or the slow change in direction of the Earth's axis, could cause periodic fluctuations in climate. But it has been proven that this change alone cannot be significant enough to cause an ice age.

Scientists also looked for an answer in periodic variations in the eccentricity of the ecliptic (Earth's orbit) with the phenomenon of glaciation at maximum eccentricity. Some researchers believed that winter at aphelion, the most distant part of the ecliptic, could lead to glaciation. And others believed that such an effect could be caused by summer at aphelion.

The cause of the ice age is seen by some scientists as a decrease in the initially high temperature of the planet. Warm periods between glacial periods were associated with heat released from the supposed decomposition of organisms in layers close to the earth's surface. Increases and decreases in hot spring activity were also taken into account.

There is a view that dust of volcanic origin filled the earth's atmosphere and caused isolation, or, on the other hand, the increasing amount of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere prevented the reflection of heat rays from the surface of the planet. An increase in the amount of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere can cause a drop in temperature (Arrhenius), but calculations have shown that this could not be the true cause of the ice age (Angström).

All other theories are also hypothetical. The phenomenon that underlies all these changes has never been precisely defined, and those that have been named could not produce a similar effect.

Not only are the reasons for the appearance and subsequent disappearance of ice sheets unknown, but also the geographical relief of the area covered by ice remains a problem. Why did ice cover in the southern hemisphere move from tropical Africa towards the south pole, and not in the opposite direction? And why, in the northern hemisphere, did ice move into India from the equator towards the Himalayas and higher latitudes? Why did glaciers cover most of North America and Europe, while Northern Asia was free of them?

In America, the ice plain extended to a latitude of 40° and even crossed this line; in Europe it reached a latitude of 50°, and North-Eastern Siberia, above the Arctic Circle, even at a latitude of 75° was not covered with this eternal ice. All hypotheses concerning increasing and decreasing insulation associated with changes in the sun or temperature fluctuations in outer space, and other similar hypotheses, cannot but face this problem.

Glaciers formed in permafrost areas. For this reason, they remained on the slopes of high mountains. Northern Siberia is the coldest place on Earth. Why did the Ice Age not affect this area, although it covered the Mississippi basin and all of Africa south of the equator? No satisfactory answer to this question has been proposed.

During the Last Ice Age at the peak of glaciation, which was observed 18,000 years ago (on the eve of the Great Flood), the boundaries of the glacier in Eurasia ran approximately at 50° north latitude (the latitude of Voronezh), and the boundary of the glacier in North America even at 40° (the latitude New York). At the South Pole, glaciation affected southern South America, and possibly New Zealand and southern Australia.

The theory of ice ages was first outlined in the work of the father of glaciology, Jean Louis Agassiz, “Etudes sur les glaciers” (1840). Over the century and a half since then, glaciology has been replenished with a huge amount of new scientific data, and the maximum boundaries of the Quaternary glaciation were determined with a high degree of accuracy.
However, over the entire existence of glaciology, it has not been able to establish the most important thing - to determine the causes of the onset and retreat of ice ages. None of the hypotheses put forward during this time received approval from the scientific community. And today, for example, in the Russian-language Wikipedia article “Ice Age” you will not find the section “Causes of Ice Ages”. And not because they forgot to place this section here, but because no one knows these reasons. What are the real reasons?
Paradoxically, in fact, there have never been any ice ages in the history of the Earth. The temperature and climate regime of the Earth is determined mainly by four factors: the intensity of the Sun's glow; the orbital distance of the Earth from the Sun; the angle of inclination of the Earth's axial rotation to the ecliptic plane; as well as the composition and density of the earth's atmosphere.

These factors, as scientific data show, remained stable throughout at least the last Quaternary period. Consequently, there were no reasons for a sharp change in the Earth's climate towards cooling.

What is the reason for the monstrous growth of glaciers during the Last Ice Age? The answer is simple: in the periodic change in the location of the earth's poles. And here we should immediately add: the monstrous growth of the Glacier during the Last Ice Age is an apparent phenomenon. In fact, the total area and volume of the Arctic and Antarctic glaciers always remained approximately constant - while the North and South Poles changed their position with an interval of 3,600 years, which predetermined the wandering of the polar glaciers (caps) on the surface of the Earth. Exactly as much glacier formed around the new poles as it melted in the places where the poles left. In other words, the ice age is a very relative concept. When the North Pole was in North America, there was an ice age for its inhabitants. When the North Pole moved to Scandinavia, the Ice Age began in Europe, and when the North Pole “went” into the East Siberian Sea, the Ice Age “came” to Asia. Currently, the ice age is severe for the supposed inhabitants of Antarctica and the former inhabitants of Greenland, which is constantly thawing in the southern part, since the previous pole shift was not strong and moved Greenland a little closer to the equator.

Thus, there have never been ice ages in the history of the Earth and at the same time they always exist. Such is the paradox.

The total area and volume of glaciation on planet Earth has always been, is and will be generally constant as long as the four factors that determine the Earth's climate regime remain constant.
During the pole shift period, there are several ice sheets on Earth at the same time, usually two melting and two newly formed - this depends on the angle of crustal displacement.

Pole shifts on Earth occur at intervals of 3,600-3,700 years, corresponding to the period of Planet X's orbit around the Sun. These pole shifts lead to a redistribution of hot and cold zones on Earth, which is reflected in modern academic science in the form of continuously alternating stadials (cooling periods) and interstadials (warming periods). The average duration of both stadials and interstadials is determined in modern science to be 3700 years, which correlates well with the period of Planet X’s revolution around the Sun - 3600 years.

From academic literature:

It must be said that in the last 80,000 years the following periods (years BC) have been observed in Europe:
Stadial (cooling) 72500-68000
Interstadial (warming) 68000-66500
Stadial 66500-64000
Interstadial 64000-60500
Stadial 60500-48500
Interstadial 48500-40000
Stadial 40000-38000
Interstadial 38000-34000
Stadial 34000-32500
Interstadial 32500-24000
Stadial 24000-23000
Interstadial 23000-21500
Stadial 21500-17500
Interstadial 17500-16000
Stadial 16000-13000
Interstadial 13000-12500
Stadial 12500-10000

Thus, over the course of 62 thousand years, 9 stadials and 8 interstadials occurred in Europe. The average duration of a stadial is 3700 years, and an interstadial is also 3700 years. The largest stadial lasted 12,000 years, and the interstadial lasted 8,500 years.

In the post-Flood history of the Earth, 5 pole shifts occurred and, accordingly, in the Northern Hemisphere 5 polar ice sheets successively replaced each other: the Laurentian Ice Sheet (the last antediluvian), the Scandinavian Barents-Kara Ice Sheet, the East Siberian Ice Sheet, the Greenland Ice Sheet and the modern Arctic ice sheet.

The modern Greenland Ice Sheet deserves special attention as the third major ice sheet, coexisting simultaneously with the Arctic Ice Sheet and the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The presence of a third large ice sheet does not at all contradict the theses stated above, since it is a well-preserved remnant of the previous Northern Polar Ice Sheet, where the North Pole was located during 5,200 - 1,600 years. BC. This fact is connected with the solution to the riddle of why the extreme north of Greenland today is not affected by glaciation - the North Pole was in the south of Greenland.

The location of the polar ice sheets in the southern hemisphere changed accordingly:

• 16,000 BCuh. (18,000 years ago) Recently, there has been a strong consensus in academic science regarding the fact that this year was both the peak of maximum glaciation of the Earth and the beginning of the rapid melting of the Glacier. There is no clear explanation for either fact in modern science. What was this year famous for? 16,000 BC e. - this is the year of the 5th passage through the solar system, counting from the present moment ago (3600 x 5 = 18,000 years ago). In this year, the North Pole was located on the territory of modern Canada in the Hudson Bay region. The South Pole was located in the ocean east of Antarctica, suggesting glaciation in southern Australia and New Zealand. Eurasia is completely free of glaciers. “In the 6th year of K’an, the 11th day of Muluk, in the month of Sak, a terrible earthquake began and continued without interruption until the 13th of Kuen. The Land of Clay Hills, the Land of Mu, was sacrificed. After experiencing two strong fluctuations, it suddenly disappeared during the night;the soil was constantly shaking under the influence of underground forces, raising and lowering it in many places, so that it sank; countries separated from one another, then fell apart. Unable to resist these terrible tremors, they failed, dragging the inhabitants with them. This happened 8050 years before this book was written."(“Code of Troano” translated by Auguste Le Plongeon). The unprecedented scale of the catastrophe caused by the passage of Planet X led to a very strong pole shift. The North Pole moves from Canada to Scandinavia, the South Pole moves to the ocean west of Antarctica. At the same time the Laurentian Ice Sheet begins to rapidly melt, which coincides with the data of academic science about the end of the peak of glaciation and the beginning of the melting of the Glacier, the Scandinavian Ice Sheet is formed. At the same time, the Australian and South Zealand ice sheets are melting and the Patagonian Ice Sheet is forming in South America. These four ice sheets coexist only for the relatively short time required for the previous two ice sheets to completely melt and two new ones to form.

• 12,400 BC The North Pole moves from Scandinavia to the Barents Sea. This creates the Barents-Kara Ice Sheet, but the Scandinavian Ice Sheet melts only slightly as the North Pole moves a relatively small distance. In academic science, this fact is reflected as follows: “The first signs of the interglacial (which continues to this day) appeared already 12,000 BC.”
• 8800 BC The North Pole moves from the Barents Sea to the East Siberian Sea, due to which the Scandinavian and Barents-Kara ice sheets melt, and the East Siberian Ice Sheet is formed. This pole shift killed off most of the mammoths. Quoting from an academic study: “About 8000 BC. e. sharp warming led to the retreat of the glacier from its last line - a wide strip of moraines stretching from central Sweden through the Baltic Sea basin to south-east Finland. Around this time, the disintegration of a single and homogeneous periglacial zone occurs. In the temperate zone of Eurasia, forest vegetation predominates. To the south of it, forest-steppe and steppe zones take shape.”
• 5200 BC The North Pole moves from the East Siberian Sea to Greenland, causing the East Siberian Ice Sheet to melt and form the Greenland Ice Sheet. Hyperborea is freed from ice, and a wonderful temperate climate is established in the Trans-Urals and Siberia. Aryavarta, the land of the Aryans, flourishes here.
• 1600 BC Past shift. The North Pole moves from Greenland to the Arctic Ocean to its present position. The Arctic Ice Sheet appears, but at the same time the Greenland Ice Sheet persists. The last mammoths living in Siberia freeze very quickly with undigested green grass in their stomachs. Hyperborea is completely hidden under the modern Arctic ice sheet. Most of the Trans-Urals and Siberia become unsuitable for human existence, which is why the Aryans undertook their famous Exodus to India and Europe, and the Jews also made their exodus from Egypt.

“In the permafrost of Alaska... one can find... evidence of atmospheric disturbances of incomparable power. Mammoths and bison were torn to pieces and twisted as if some cosmic hands of the gods were at work in fury. In one place... they discovered the front leg and shoulder of a mammoth; the blackened bones still held remnants of soft tissue adjacent to the spine along with tendons and ligaments, and the chitinous shell of the tusks was not damaged. There were no traces of dismemberment of the carcasses with a knife or other weapon (as would be the case if hunters were involved in the dismemberment). The animals were simply torn apart and scattered across the area like products made from woven straw, although some of them weighed several tons. Mixed in with the accumulations of bones are trees, also torn, twisted and tangled; all this is covered with fine-grained quicksand, subsequently frozen tightly” (H. Hancock, “Traces of the Gods”).

Frozen mammoths

Northeastern Siberia, which was not covered by glaciers, holds another secret. Its climate has changed dramatically since the end of the Ice Age, and the average annual temperature has fallen many degrees lower than before. The animals that once lived in the area could no longer live here, and the plants that once grew there were unable to grow here anymore. This change must have happened quite suddenly. The reason for this event is not explained. During this catastrophic climate change and under mysterious circumstances, all Siberian mammoths died. And this happened only 13 thousand years ago, when the human race was already widespread throughout the planet. For comparison: Late Paleolithic cave paintings found in caves in Southern France (Lascaux, Chauvet, Rouffignac, etc.) were made 17-13 thousand years ago.

There lived such an animal on earth - a mammoth. They reached a height of 5.5 meters and a body weight of 4-12 tons. Most mammoths died out about 11-12 thousand years ago during the last cold spell of the Vistula Ice Age. Science tells us this, and paints a picture like the one above. True, without being very concerned with the question - what did these woolly elephants weighing 4-5 tons eat in such a landscape? “Of course, since they say so in books”- Aleni nods. Reading very selectively and looking at the picture provided. The fact that during the life of mammoths, birch trees grew on the territory of the current tundra (which is written about in the same book, and other deciduous forests - i.e. a completely different climate) - is somehow not noticed. The diet of mammoths was mainly plant-based, and adult males They ate about 180 kg of food every day.

While the number of woolly mammoths was truly impressive. For example, between 1750 and 1917, trade in mammoth ivory flourished over a wide area, and 96,000 mammoth tusks were discovered. According to various estimates, about 5 million mammoths lived in a small part of northern Siberia.

Before their extinction, woolly mammoths inhabited large parts of our planet. Their remains were found throughout the area Northern Europe, Northern Asia and North America.

Woolly mammoths were not a new species. They inhabited our planet for six million years.

A biased interpretation of the mammoth's hair and fat constitution, as well as a belief in constant climatic conditions, led scientists to the conclusion that the woolly mammoth was an inhabitant of the cold regions of our planet. But fur-bearing animals do not have to live in a cold climate. Take for example desert animals like camels, kangaroos and fennec foxes. They are furry, but live in hot or temperate climates. In fact most fur-bearing animals would not be able to survive in arctic conditions.

For successful cold adaptation, it is not enough just to have a coat. For adequate thermal insulation from the cold, the wool must be in a raised state. Unlike Antarctic fur seals, mammoths lacked raised fur.

Another factor in sufficient protection from cold and humidity is the presence of sebaceous glands, which secrete oils onto the skin and fur, and thus protect against moisture.

Mammoths had no sebaceous glands, and their dry hair allowed snow to touch the skin, melt, and greatly increase heat loss (the thermal conductivity of water is about 12 times higher than that of snow).

As you can see in the photo above, mammoth fur was not dense. By comparison, the fur of the yak (a cold-adapted Himalayan mammal) is approximately 10 times thicker.

In addition, mammoths had hair that hung down to their toes. But every Arctic animal has fur, not hair, on its toes or paws. Hair would collect snow on the ankle joint and interfere with walking.

The above clearly shows that fur and body fat are not evidence of adaptation to cold. The fat layer only indicates the abundance of food. A fat, overfed dog would not be able to withstand an Arctic blizzard and temperatures of -60°C. But Arctic rabbits or caribou can, despite their relatively low fat content relative to their total body weight.

As a rule, the remains of mammoths are found with the remains of other animals, such as tigers, antelopes, camels, horses, reindeer, giant beavers, giant bulls, sheep, musk oxen, donkeys, badgers, alpine goats, woolly rhinoceroses, foxes, giant bison, lynx, leopards, wolverines, hares, lions, moose, giant wolves, gophers, cave hyenas, bears, as well as many species of birds. Most of these animals would not be able to survive in the Arctic climate. This is further evidence that Woolly mammoths were not polar animals.

A French prehistoric expert, Henry Neville, conducted the most detailed study of mammoth skin and hair. At the end of his careful analysis he wrote the following:

“It does not seem to me possible to find in the anatomical study of their skin and [hair] any argument in favor of adaptation to cold.”

— G. Neville, On the Extinction of the Mammoth, Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1919, p. 332.

Finally, the diet of mammoths contradicts the diet of animals living in polar climates. How could a woolly mammoth maintain its vegetarian diet in the Arctic region, and eat hundreds of kilograms of greens every day, when in such a climate there are no greens for most of the year? How could woolly mammoths find liters of water for daily consumption?

To make matters worse, woolly mammoths lived during the Ice Age, when temperatures were lower than they are today. Mammoths would not have been able to survive in the harsh climate of northern Siberia today, let alone 13 thousand years ago, if the then climate had been much harsher.

The above facts indicate that the woolly mammoth was not a polar animal, but lived in a temperate climate. Consequently, at the beginning of the Younger Dryas, 13 thousand years ago, Siberia was not an Arctic region, but a temperate one.

“However, they died a long time ago”– the reindeer herder agrees, cutting off a piece of meat from the found carcass to feed the dogs.

"Hard"- says the more vital geologist, chewing a piece of shish kebab taken from an improvised skewer.

The frozen mammoth meat initially looked absolutely fresh, dark red in color, with appetizing streaks of fat, and the expedition staff even wanted to try eating it. But as it thawed, the meat became flabby, dark gray in color, with an unbearable smell of decomposition. However, the dogs happily ate the millennia-old ice cream delicacy, from time to time starting internecine fights over the most delicious morsels.

One more thing. Mammoths are rightly called fossils. Because nowadays they are simply dug. For the purpose of extracting tusks for crafts.

It is estimated that over two and a half centuries in northeastern Siberia, tusks belonging to at least forty-six thousand (!) mammoths were collected (the average weight of a pair of tusks is close to eight pounds - about one hundred and thirty kilograms).

Mammoth tusks DIGGING. That is, they are mined from underground. Somehow the question does not even arise - why have we forgotten how to see the obvious? Did mammoths dig holes for themselves, lie down in them for winter hibernation, and then they were covered? But how did they end up underground? At a depth of 10 meters or more? Why are mammoth tusks dug out of cliffs on river banks? Moreover, in large numbers. So massively that a bill has been submitted to the State Duma equating mammoths to minerals, as well as introducing a tax on their extraction.

But for some reason they are digging them en masse only in our north. And now the question arises - what happened that entire mammoth cemeteries were formed here?

What caused such an almost instant mass pestilence?

Over the past two centuries, numerous theories have been proposed that attempt to explain the sudden extinction of woolly mammoths. They became stranded in frozen rivers, overhunted, and fell into icy crevasses at the height of the global glaciation. But Neither theory adequately explains this mass extinction.

Let's try to think for ourselves.

Then the following logical chain should line up:

1. There were a lot of mammoths.
2. Since there were many of them, they must have had a good food supply - not the tundra, where they are now found.
3. If it was not the tundra, the climate in those places was somewhat different, much warmer.
4. A slightly different climate beyond the Arctic Circle could only exist if it was not beyond the Arctic Circle at that time.
5. Mammoth tusks, and even whole mammoths themselves, are found underground. They somehow got there, some event happened that covered them with a layer of soil.
6. Taking it as an axiom that mammoths themselves did not dig holes, this soil could only have been brought by water, first surging in and then draining.
7. The layer of this soil is thick - meters, and even tens of meters. And the amount of water that applied such a layer must have been very large.
8. Mammoth carcasses are found in very well-preserved condition. Immediately after washing the corpses with sand, they froze, which was very fast.

They froze almost instantly on giant glaciers, many hundreds of meters thick, to which they were carried by a tidal wave caused by a change in the angle of the earth's axis. This gave rise to an unjustified assumption among scientists that animals of the middle zone went deep to the North in search of food. All the remains of mammoths were found in sands and clays deposited by mud flows.

Such powerful mudflows are possible only during extraordinary major disasters, because at this time dozens, and possibly hundreds and thousands of animal cemeteries were formed throughout the North, in which not only the inhabitants of the northern regions, but also animals from regions with a temperate climate ended up being washed away . And this allows us to believe that these gigantic animal cemeteries were formed by a tidal wave of incredible power and size, which literally rolled across the continents and, moving back into the ocean, took with it thousands of herds of large and small animals. And the most powerful mudflow “tongue”, containing gigantic accumulations of animals, reached the New Siberian Islands, which were literally covered with loess and countless bones of a wide variety of animals.

A giant tidal wave washed away gigantic herds of animals from the face of the Earth. These huge herds of drowned animals, lingering in natural barriers, folds of terrain and floodplains, formed countless animal cemeteries in which animals from various climatic zones found themselves mixed.

Scattered bones and molars of mammoths are often found in sediments and sediments on the ocean floor.

The most famous, but far from the largest mammoth cemetery in Russia, is the Berelekh burial site. This is how N.K. describes the Berelekh mammoth cemetery. Vereshchagin: “The yar is crowned with a melting edge of ice and mounds... A kilometer later, a vast scattering of huge gray bones appeared - long, flat, short. They protrude from the dark damp soil in the middle of the slope of the ravine. Sliding toward the water along a weakly turfed slope, the bones formed a spit-toe that protected the shore from erosion. There are thousands of them, the scattering stretches along the shore for about two hundred meters and goes into the water. The opposite, right bank is only eighty meters away, low, alluvial, behind it is an impenetrable thicket of willow... everyone is silent, depressed by what they see.”.In the area of ​​the Berelekh cemetery there is a thick layer of clay-ash loess. Signs of extremely large floodplain sediment are clearly visible. A huge mass of fragments of branches, roots, and bone remains of animals had accumulated in this place. The animal cemetery was washed away by the river, which twelve thousand years later returned to its former course. Scientists who studied the Berelekh cemetery discovered among the remains of mammoths, a large number of bones of other animals, herbivores and predators, which under normal conditions are never found in huge concentrations together: foxes, hares, deer, wolves, wolverines and other animals.

The theory of recurring catastrophes destroying life on our planet and repeating the creation, or restoration of life forms, proposed by Deluc and developed by Cuvier, did not convince the scientific world. Both Lamarck before Cuvier and Darwin after him believed that a progressive, slow, evolutionary process governs genetics and that there are no catastrophes that interrupt this process of infinitesimal changes. According to the theory of evolution, these minor changes are the result of adaptation to living conditions in the struggle of species for survival.

Darwin admitted that he was unable to explain the disappearance of the mammoth, an animal much more advanced than the elephant, which survived. But in accordance with the theory of evolution, his followers believed that the gradual subsidence of the soil forced the mammoths to climb the hills, and they turned out to be closed on all sides by swamps. However, if geological processes are slow, mammoths would not be trapped on isolated hills. Moreover, this theory cannot be true because the animals did not die from starvation. Undigested grass was found in their stomachs and between their teeth. This, by the way, also proves that they died suddenly. Further research showed that the branches and leaves found in their stomachs did not come from the areas where the animals died, but further south, more than a thousand miles away. It appears that the climate has changed radically since the death of the mammoths. And since the bodies of the animals were found undecomposed, but well preserved in ice blocks, a change in temperature must have followed immediately after their death.

Documentary

Risking their lives and exposing themselves to great danger, scientists in Siberia are searching for one single frozen mammoth cell. With the help of which it will be possible to clone and thereby bring back to life a long-extinct species of animal.

It remains to add that after storms in the Arctic, mammoth tusks are washed up on the shores of the Arctic islands. This proves that the part of the land where the mammoths lived and drowned was heavily flooded.

For some reason, modern scientists do not take into account the facts of the presence of a geotectonic catastrophe in the Earth’s recent past. Precisely in the recent past.
Although for them it is already an indisputable fact of the catastrophe that killed the dinosaurs. But they also date this event to 60-65 million years ago.
There are no versions that would combine the temporal facts of the death of dinosaurs and mammoths - at one time. Mammoths lived in temperate latitudes, dinosaurs - in the southern regions, but died at the same time.
But no, no attention is paid to the geographical attachment of animals from different climatic zones, but there is also a temporary separation.
There have already been many facts about the sudden death of a huge number of mammoths in different parts of the world. But here scientists again avoid obvious conclusions.
Not only have representatives of science aged all the mammoths by 40 thousand years, but they are also inventing versions of the natural processes in which these giants died.

American, French and Russian scientists conducted the first CT scans of Lyuba and Khroma, the youngest and best-preserved mammoth calves.

Computed tomography (CT) sections were presented in the new issue of the Journal of Paleontology, and a summary of the results of the work can be found on the University of Michigan website.

Reindeer herders found Lyuba in 2007, on the banks of the Yuribey River on the Yamal Peninsula. Her corpse reached the scientists almost without damage (only the tail was chewed off by dogs).

Khroma (this is “boy”) was discovered in 2008 on the banks of the river of the same name in Yakutia - crows and arctic foxes ate his trunk and part of his neck. Mammoths have well-preserved soft tissues (muscles, fat, internal organs, skin). Khroma was even found with coagulated blood in intact vessels and undigested milk in her stomach. Chroma was scanned at a French hospital. And at the University of Michigan, scientists made CT sections of animal teeth.

Thanks to this, it turned out that Lyuba died at the age of 30-35 days, and Chroma - 52-57 days (and both mammoths were born in the spring).

Both baby mammoths died after choking on mud. CT scans showed a dense mass of fine-grained deposits blocking the airways in the trunk.

The same deposits are present in Lyuba’s throat and bronchi - but not inside her lungs: this suggests that Lyuba did not drown in the water (as was previously thought), but suffocated by inhaling liquid mud. Khroma's spine was broken and there was also dirt in his respiratory tract.

So, scientists have once again confirmed our version of a global mudflow that covered the present north of Siberia and destroyed all life there, covering a vast area with “fine-grained sediments that clogged the respiratory tract.”

After all, such finds are observed over a vast territory and to assume that all the found mammoths suddenly AT THE SAME TIME and en masse began to fall into rivers and swamps is absurd.

Plus, the mammoth calves have typical injuries for those caught in a stormy mudflow - broken bones and spine.

Scientists have found a very interesting detail - the death occurred either at the end of spring or in summer. After birth in the spring, mammoth calves lived for 30-50 days before death. That is, the time of the pole change was probably in the summer.

Or here's another example:

A team of Russian and American paleontologists is studying a bison that has lain in permafrost in northeastern Yakutia for about 9,300 years.

The bison found on the shores of Lake Chukchalakh is unique in that it is the first representative of this bovid species found at such a respectable age in complete preservation - with all parts of the body and internal organs.

He was found in a supine position with his legs bent under his abdomen, his neck extended and his head lying on the ground. Usually, ungulates rest or sleep in this position, and in this position they die a natural death.

The age of the body, determined using radiocarbon analysis, is 9310 years, that is, the bison lived in the early Holocene era. Scientists also determined that his age before death was about four years. The bison managed to grow to 170 cm at the withers, the span of the horns reached an impressive 71 cm, and the weight was about 500 kg.

Researchers have already scanned the animal's brain, but the cause of its death still remains a mystery. No damage was found on the corpse, nor were there any pathologies of internal organs or dangerous bacteria.

Last Ice Age

During this era, 35% of the land was under ice cover (compared to 10% today).

The last ice age was not just a natural disaster. It is impossible to understand the life of planet Earth without taking these periods into account. In the intervals between them (known as interglacial periods), life flourished, but then once again the ice moved inexorably and brought death, but life did not completely disappear. Each ice age was marked by the struggle for survival of different species, global climate changes occurred, and in the last of them a new species appeared, which (over time) became dominant on Earth: it was man.
Ice Ages
Ice ages are geological periods characterized by severe cooling of the Earth, during which vast areas of the earth's surface were covered with ice, high levels of humidity and, naturally, exceptional cold were observed, as well as the lowest sea levels known to modern science. There is no generally accepted theory regarding the reasons for the onset of the Ice Age, but since the 17th century, a variety of explanations have been proposed. According to the current opinion, this phenomenon was not caused by one reason, but was the result of the influence of three factors.

Changes in the composition of the atmosphere - a different ratio of carbon dioxide (carbon dioxide) and methane - caused a sharp drop in temperature. It's like the opposite of what we now call global warming, but on a much larger scale.

The movements of the continents, caused by cyclic changes in the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, and in addition the change in the angle of inclination of the planet’s axis relative to the Sun, also had an impact.

The earth received less solar heat, it cooled, which led to glaciation.
The earth has experienced several ice ages. The largest glaciation occurred 950-600 million years ago during the Precambrian era. Then in the Miocene era - 15 million years ago.

Traces of glaciation that can be observed at the present time represent the legacy of the last two million years and belong to the Quaternary period. This period is best studied by scientists and is divided into four periods: Günz, Mindel (Mindel), Ries (Rise) and Würm. The latter corresponds to the last ice age.

Last Ice Age
The Würm stage of glaciation began approximately 100,000 years ago, peaked after 18 thousand years and began to decline after 8 thousand years. During this time, the thickness of the ice reached 350-400 km and covered a third of the land above sea level, in other words, three times the area than now. Based on the amount of ice that currently covers the planet, we can get some idea of ​​the extent of glaciation during that period: today, glaciers occupy 14.8 million km2, or about 10% of the earth's surface, and during the Ice Age they covered an area of ​​44 .4 million km2, which is 30% of the Earth's surface.

According to assumptions, in northern Canada, ice covered an area of ​​13.3 million km2, while now there is 147.25 km2 under ice. The same difference is noted in Scandinavia: 6.7 million km2 in that period compared to 3,910 km2 today.

The Ice Age occurred simultaneously in both hemispheres, although in the North the ice spread over larger areas. In Europe, the glacier covered most of the British Isles, northern Germany and Poland, and in North America, where the Würm glaciation is called the “Wisconsin Ice Age,” a layer of ice that descended from the North Pole covered all of Canada and spread south of the Great Lakes. Like the lakes in Patagonia and the Alps, they were formed on the site of depressions left after the melting of the ice mass.

The sea level dropped by almost 120 m, as a result of which large areas were exposed that are currently covered with sea water. The significance of this fact is enormous, since large-scale migrations of humans and animals became possible: hominids were able to make the transition from Siberia to Alaska and move from continental Europe to England. It is quite possible that during interglacial periods, the two largest ice masses on Earth - Antarctica and Greenland - have undergone slight changes throughout history.

At the peak of glaciation, the average temperature drop varied significantly depending on the area: 100 °C in Alaska, 60 °C in England, 20 °C in the tropics and remained virtually unchanged at the equator. Studies of the last glaciations in North America and Europe, which occurred during the Pleistocene era, gave similar results in this geological area within the last two (approximately) million years.

The last 100,000 years are of particular importance to understanding human evolution. Ice ages became a severe test for the inhabitants of the Earth. After the end of the next glaciation, they again had to adapt and learn to survive. When the climate became warmer, sea levels rose, new forests and plants appeared, and the land rose, freed from the pressure of the ice shell.

Hominids had the most natural resources to adapt to changing conditions. They were able to move to areas with the greatest amount of food resources, where the slow process of their evolution began.
It’s not expensive to buy children’s shoes wholesale in Moscow

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1.8 million years ago, the Quaternary (anthropogenic) period of the geological history of the earth began and continues to this day.

River basins expanded. There was a rapid development of the mammal fauna, especially mastodons (which would later become extinct, like many other ancient animal species), ungulates and great apes. During this geological period in the history of the earth, man appears (hence the word anthropogenic in the name of this geological period).

The Quaternary period marks a sharp change in climate throughout the European part of Russia. From warm and humid Mediterranean, it turned into moderately cold, and then into cold Arctic. This led to glaciation. Ice accumulated on the Scandinavian Peninsula, in Finland, on the Kola Peninsula and spread to the south.

The Oksky glacier with its southern edge covered the territory of the modern Kashira region, including our region. The first glaciation was the coldest; tree vegetation in the Oka region disappeared almost completely. The glacier did not last long. The first Quaternary glaciation reached the Oka valley, which is why it received the name “Oka glaciation”. The glacier left moraine deposits dominated by boulders of local sedimentary rocks.

But such favorable conditions were again replaced by a glacier. Glaciation was on a planetary scale. The grandiose Dnieper glaciation began. The thickness of the Scandinavian ice sheet reached 4 kilometers. The glacier moved through the Baltic to Western Europe and the European part of Russia. The boundaries of the tongues of the Dnieper glaciation passed in the area of ​​modern Dnepropetrovsk and almost reached Volgograd.

Mammoth fauna

The climate warmed again and became Mediterranean. In place of the glaciers, heat-loving and moisture-loving vegetation has spread: oak, beech, hornbeam and yew, as well as linden, alder, birch, spruce and pine, and hazel. Ferns, characteristic of modern South America, grew in the swamps. The restructuring of the river system and the formation of Quaternary terraces in river valleys began. This period was called the interglacial Oka-Dnieper age.

The Oka served as a kind of barrier to the advancement of ice fields. According to scientists, the right bank of the Oka, i.e. our region has not turned into a continuous icy desert. Here there were fields of ice, interspersed with intervals of thawed hills, between which rivers of meltwater flowed and lakes accumulated.

Ice flows of the Dnieper glaciation brought glacial boulders from Finland and Karelia to our region.

The valleys of old rivers were filled with mid-moraine and fluvioglacial deposits. It became warmer again, and the glacier began to melt. Streams of meltwater rushed south along the beds of new rivers. During this period, third terraces are formed in river valleys. Large lakes formed in the depressions. The climate was moderately cold.

Our region was dominated by forest-steppe vegetation with a predominance of coniferous and birch forests and large areas of steppes covered with wormwood, quinoa, cereals and forbs.

The interstadial era was short. The glacier returned to the Moscow region again, but did not reach the Oka, stopping not far from the southern outskirts of modern Moscow. Therefore, this third glaciation was called the Moscow glaciation. Some tongues of the glacier reached the Oka valley, but they did not reach the territory of the modern Kashira region. The climate was harsh, and the landscape of our region is becoming close to the steppe tundra. Forests are almost disappearing and steppes are taking their place.

A new warming has arrived. The rivers deepened their valleys again. Second river terraces were formed, and the hydrography of the Moscow region changed. It was during that period that the modern valley and basin of the Volga, which flows into the Caspian Sea, was formed. The Oka, and with it our river B. Smedva and its tributaries, entered the Volga river basin.

This interglacial period in climate went through stages from continental temperate (close to modern) to warm, with a Mediterranean climate. In our region, at first birches, pine and spruce dominated, and then heat-loving oaks, beeches and hornbeams began to turn green again. In the swamps grew the Brasia water lily, which today can only be found in Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam. At the end of the interglacial period, birch-coniferous forests again dominated.

This idyll was spoiled by the Valdai glaciation. Ice from the Scandinavian Peninsula again rushed south. This time the glacier did not reach the Moscow region, but changed our climate to subarctic. For many hundreds of kilometers, including through the territory of the present Kashira district and the rural settlement of Znamenskoye, the steppe-tundra stretches, with dried grass and sparse shrubs, dwarf birches and polar willows. These conditions were ideal for the mammoth fauna and for primitive man, who then already lived on the boundaries of the glacier.

During the last Valdai glaciation, the first river terraces were formed. The hydrography of our region has finally taken shape.

Traces of ice ages are often found in the Kashira region, but they are difficult to identify. Of course, large stone boulders are traces of glacial activity of the Dnieper glaciation. They were brought by ice from Scandinavia, Finland and the Kola Peninsula. The oldest traces of a glacier are moraine or boulder loam, which is a disordered mixture of clay, sand, and brown stones.

The third group of glacial rocks are sands resulting from the destruction of moraine layers by water. These are sands with large pebbles and stones and homogeneous sands. They can be observed on the Oka. These include Belopesotsky Sands. Often found in the valleys of rivers, streams, and ravines, layers of flint and limestone rubble are traces of the beds of ancient rivers and streams.

With the new warming, the geological epoch of the Holocene began (it began 11 thousand 400 years ago), which continues to this day. The modern river floodplains were finally formed. The mammoth fauna became extinct, and forests appeared in place of the tundra (first spruce, then birch, and later mixed). The flora and fauna of our region has acquired modern features - the one we see today. At the same time, the left and right banks of the Oka still differ greatly in their forest cover. If mixed forests and many open areas predominate on the right bank, then continuous coniferous forests dominate on the left bank - these are traces of glacial and interglacial climate changes. On our bank of the Oka, the glacier left fewer traces and our climate was somewhat milder than on the left bank of the Oka.

Geological processes continue today. The earth's crust in the Moscow region has been rising only slightly over the past 5 thousand years, at a rate of 10 cm per century. The modern alluvium of the Oka and other rivers of our region is being formed. What this will lead to after millions of years, we can only guess, because, having briefly become acquainted with the geological history of our region, we can safely repeat the Russian proverb: “Man proposes, but God disposes.” This saying is especially relevant after we have become convinced in this chapter that human history is a grain of sand in the history of our planet.

GLACIAL PERIOD

In distant, distant times, where Leningrad, Moscow, and Kyiv are now, everything was different. Dense forests grew along the banks of ancient rivers, and shaggy mammoths with curved tusks, huge hairy rhinoceroses, tigers and bears much larger than today roamed there.

Gradually it became colder and colder in these places. Far in the north, so much snow fell every year that entire mountains accumulated it - larger than the present-day Ural Mountains. The snow compacted, turned into ice, then began to slowly, slowly creep away, spreading in all directions.

Ice mountains have moved into the ancient forests. Cold, angry winds blew from these mountains, the trees froze and animals fled south from the cold. And the icy mountains crawled further to the south, turning out rocks along the way and moving entire hills of earth and stones in front of them. They crawled to the place where Moscow now stands, and crawled even further, to warm southern countries. They reached the hot Volga steppe and stopped.

Here, finally, the sun overpowered them: the glaciers began to melt. Huge rivers flowed from them. And the ice retreated, melted, and the masses of stones, sand and clay that the glaciers brought remained lying in the southern steppes.

More than once, terrible ice mountains have approached from the north. Have you seen the cobblestone street? Such small stones were brought by the glacier. And there are boulders as big as a house. They still lie in the north.

But the ice may move again. Just not soon. Maybe thousands of years will pass. And not only the sun will then fight the ice. If necessary, people will use ATOMIC ENERGY and prevent the glacier from entering our land.

When did the Ice Age end?

Many of us believe that the Ice Age ended a long time ago and no traces of it remain. But geologists say we are only approaching the end of the Ice Age. And the people of Greenland are still living in the Ice Age.

Approximately 25 thousand years ago, the peoples who inhabited the central part of NORTH AMERICA saw ice and snow all year round. A huge wall of ice stretched from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, and north to the Pole itself. This was during the final stages of the Ice Age, when all of Canada, most of the United States and northwestern Europe were covered in a layer of ice more than one kilometer thick.

But this does not mean that it was always very cold. In the northern part of the United States, temperatures were only 5 degrees lower than today. The cold summer months caused an ice age. At this time, the heat was not enough to melt the ice and snow. It accumulated and eventually covered the entire northern part of these areas.

The Ice Age consisted of four stages. At the beginning of each of them, ice formed moving south, then melted and retreated to the NORTH POLE. This happened, it is believed, four times. Cold periods are called “glaciations”, warm periods are called “interglacial” periods.

The first stage in North America is thought to have begun about two million years ago, the second about 1,250,000 years ago, the third about 500,000 years ago, and the last about 100,000 years ago.

The rate of ice melting during the last stage of the Ice Age was different in different areas. For example, in the area where the modern state of Wisconsin is located in the USA, the melting of ice began approximately 40,000 years ago. The ice that covered the New England region of the United States disappeared about 28,000 years ago. And the territory of the modern state of Minnesota was freed by ice only 15,000 years ago!

In Europe, Germany became ice-free 17,000 years ago, and Sweden only 13,000 years ago.

Why do glaciers still exist today?

The huge mass of ice that began the Ice Age in North America was called the “continental glacier”: in the very center its thickness reached 4.5 km. This glacier may have formed and melted four times during the entire Ice Age.

The glacier that covered other parts of the world did not melt in some places! For example, the huge island of Greenland is still covered by a continental glacier, except for a narrow coastal strip. In its middle part, the glacier sometimes reaches a thickness of more than three kilometers. Antarctica is also covered by an extensive continental glacier, with ice up to 4 kilometers thick in some places!

Therefore, the reason why there are glaciers in some areas of the globe is because they have not melted since the Ice Age. But the bulk of the glaciers found today were formed recently. They are mainly located in mountain valleys.

They originate in wide, gentle, amphitheatrically shaped valleys. Snow gets here from the slopes as a result of landslides and avalanches. Such snow does not melt in the summer, becoming deeper every year.

Gradually, pressure from above, some thawing, and refreezing remove air from the bottom of this snow mass, turning it into solid ice. The impact of the weight of the entire mass of ice and snow compresses the entire mass and causes it to move down the valley. This moving tongue of ice is a mountain glacier.

In Europe, more than 1,200 such glaciers are known in the Alps! They also exist in the Pyrenees, the Carpathians, the Caucasus, and also in the mountains of southern Asia. There are tens of thousands of similar glaciers in southern Alaska, some 50 to 100 km long!

The last ice age led to the appearance of the woolly mammoth and a huge increase in the area of ​​glaciers. But it was only one of many that cooled the Earth throughout its 4.5 billion years of history.

So, how often does the planet experience ice ages and when should we expect the next one?

Major periods of glaciation in the history of the planet

The answer to the first question depends on whether you are talking about large glaciations or small ones that occur during these long periods. Throughout history, the Earth has experienced five major periods of glaciation, some of which lasted for hundreds of millions of years. In fact, even now the Earth is experiencing a large period of glaciation, and this explains why it has polar ice caps.

The five main ice ages are the Huronian (2.4–2.1 billion years ago), the Cryogenian glaciation (720–635 million years ago), the Andean-Saharan glaciation (450–420 million years ago), and the Late Paleozoic glaciation (335–260 million years ago). million years ago) and Quaternary (2.7 million years ago to the present).

These major periods of glaciation may alternate between smaller ice ages and warm periods (interglacials). At the beginning of the Quaternary glaciation (2.7-1 million years ago), these cold ice ages occurred every 41 thousand years. However, significant ice ages have occurred less frequently over the past 800,000 years—about every 100,000 years.

How does the 100,000 year cycle work?

The ice sheets grow for about 90 thousand years and then begin to melt during the 10 thousand year warm period. Then the process is repeated.

Given that the last ice age ended about 11,700 years ago, perhaps it's time for another one to begin?

Scientists believe we should be experiencing another ice age right now. However, there are two factors associated with the Earth's orbit that influence the formation of warm and cold periods. Considering also how much carbon dioxide we emit into the atmosphere, the next ice age won't start for at least 100,000 years.

What causes an ice age?

The hypothesis put forward by Serbian astronomer Milutin Milanković explains why cycles of glacial and interglacial periods exist on Earth.

As a planet orbits the Sun, the amount of light it receives from it is affected by three factors: its inclination (which ranges from 24.5 to 22.1 degrees on a 41,000-year cycle), its eccentricity (the change in the shape of its orbit around of the Sun, which fluctuates from a near circle to an oval shape) and its wobble (one complete wobble occurs every 19-23 thousand years).

In 1976, a landmark paper in the journal Science presented evidence that these three orbital parameters explained the planet's glacial cycles.

Milankovitch's theory is that orbital cycles are predictable and very consistent in the history of the planet. If the Earth is experiencing an ice age, it will be covered with more or less ice, depending on these orbital cycles. But if the Earth is too warm, no change will occur, at least in terms of increasing amounts of ice.

What can affect the warming of the planet?

The first gas that comes to mind is carbon dioxide. Over the past 800 thousand years, carbon dioxide levels have ranged from 170 to 280 parts per million (meaning that out of 1 million air molecules, 280 are carbon dioxide molecules). A seemingly insignificant difference of 100 parts per million results in glacial and interglacial periods. But carbon dioxide levels are significantly higher today than in past periods of fluctuation. In May 2016, carbon dioxide levels over Antarctica reached 400 parts per million.

The Earth has warmed up this much before. For example, during the time of dinosaurs the air temperature was even higher than it is now. But the problem is that in the modern world it is growing at a record pace because we have released too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in a short time. Moreover, given that the rate of emissions is not currently decreasing, we can conclude that the situation is unlikely to change in the near future.

Consequences of warming

The warming caused by this carbon dioxide will have big consequences because even a small increase in the Earth's average temperature can lead to dramatic changes. For example, the Earth was on average only 5 degrees Celsius colder during the last ice age than it is today, but this led to a significant change in regional temperatures, the disappearance of huge parts of flora and fauna, and the emergence of new species.

If global warming causes all the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica to melt, sea levels will rise by 60 meters compared to today's levels.

What causes major ice ages?

The factors that caused long periods of glaciation, such as the Quaternary, are not as well understood by scientists. But one idea is that a massive drop in carbon dioxide levels could lead to colder temperatures.

For example, according to the uplift and weathering hypothesis, when plate tectonics causes mountain ranges to grow, new exposed rock appears on the surface. It easily weathers and disintegrates when it ends up in the oceans. Marine organisms use these rocks to create their shells. Over time, stones and shells take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and its level drops significantly, which leads to a period of glaciation.

One of the mysteries of the Earth, along with the emergence of Life on it and the extinction of dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, is - Great Glaciations.

It is believed that glaciations repeat on Earth regularly every 180-200 million years. Traces of glaciations are known in sediments that are billions and hundreds of millions of years old - in the Cambrian, Carboniferous, Triassic-Permian. That they could be is “said” by the so-called tillites, breeds very similar to moraine the latter, more precisely last glaciations. These are the remains of ancient glacial deposits, consisting of a clayey mass with inclusions of large and small boulders scratched by movement (hatched).

Separate layers tillites, found even in equatorial Africa, can reach thickness of tens and even hundreds of meters!

Signs of glaciations were found on different continents - in Australia, South America, Africa and India, which is used by scientists for reconstruction of paleocontinents and is often cited as confirmation plate tectonics theories.

Traces of ancient glaciations indicate that glaciations on a continental scale– this is not a random phenomenon at all, it is a natural natural phenomenon that occurs under certain conditions.

The last of the ice ages began almost million years ago, in Quaternary time, or the Quaternary period, the Pleistocene and was marked by the extensive spread of glaciers - The Great Glaciation of the Earth.

Under thick, many-kilometer-long covers of ice were the northern part of the North American continent - the North American Ice Sheet, which reached a thickness of up to 3.5 km and extended to approximately 38° north latitude and a significant part of Europe, on which (an ice sheet with a thickness of up to 2.5-3 km) . On the territory of Russia, the glacier descended in two huge tongues along the ancient valleys of the Dnieper and Don.

Partial glaciation also covered Siberia - there was mainly the so-called “mountain-valley glaciation”, when glaciers did not cover the entire area with a thick cover, but were only in the mountains and foothill valleys, which is associated with the sharply continental climate and low temperatures in Eastern Siberia . But almost all of Western Siberia, due to the fact that the rivers were dammed and their flow into the Arctic Ocean stopped, found itself under water, and was a huge sea-lake.

In the Southern Hemisphere, the entire Antarctic continent was under ice, as it is now.

During the period of maximum expansion of the Quaternary glaciation, glaciers covered over 40 million km 2–about a quarter of the entire surface of the continents.

Having reached their greatest development about 250 thousand years ago, the Quaternary glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere began to gradually shrink as the glaciation period was not continuous throughout the Quaternary period.

There is geological, paleobotanical and other evidence that glaciers disappeared several times, giving way to epochs interglacial when the climate was even warmer than today. However, the warm eras were replaced by cold snaps again, and the glaciers spread again.

We now live, apparently, at the end of the fourth epoch of the Quaternary glaciation.

But in Antarctica, glaciation arose millions of years before the time when glaciers appeared in North America and Europe. In addition to the climatic conditions, this was facilitated by the high continent that had existed here for a long time. By the way, now, due to the fact that the thickness of the Antarctic glacier is enormous, the continental bed of the “ice continent” is in some places below sea level...

Unlike the ancient ice sheets of the Northern Hemisphere, which disappeared and then reappeared, the Antarctic ice sheet has changed little in its size. The maximum glaciation of Antarctica was only one and a half times larger than the modern one in volume, and not much larger in area.

Now about the hypotheses... There are hundreds, if not thousands, of hypotheses about why glaciations occur, and whether there were any at all!

The following main ones are usually put forward: scientific hypotheses:

• Volcanic eruptions leading to a decrease in the transparency of the atmosphere and cooling throughout the Earth;
• Epochs of orogenesis (mountain building);
• Reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which reduces the “greenhouse effect” and leads to cooling;
• Cyclicity of solar activity;
• Changes in the position of the Earth relative to the Sun.

But, nevertheless, the causes of glaciations have not been fully elucidated!

It is assumed, for example, that glaciation begins when, with an increase in the distance between the Earth and the Sun, around which it rotates in a slightly elongated orbit, the amount of solar heat received by our planet decreases, i.e. glaciation occurs when the Earth passes the point of its orbit that is farthest from the Sun.

However, astronomers believe that changes in the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth alone are not enough to trigger an ice age. Apparently, fluctuations in the activity of the Sun itself also matter, which is a periodic, cyclical process, and changes every 11-12 years, with a cyclicity of 2-3 years and 5-6 years. And the largest cycles of activity, as established by the Soviet geographer A.V. Shnitnikov - approximately 1800-2000 years old.

There is also a hypothesis that the emergence of glaciers is associated with certain areas of the Universe through which our Solar System passes, moving with the entire Galaxy, either filled with gas or “clouds” of cosmic dust. And it is likely that “cosmic winter” on Earth occurs when the globe is at the point furthest from the center of our Galaxy, where there are accumulations of “cosmic dust” and gas.

It should be noted that usually before epochs of cooling there are always epochs of warming, and there is, for example, a hypothesis that the Arctic Ocean, due to warming, at times is completely freed from ice (by the way, this is still happening), and there is increased evaporation from the surface of the ocean , streams of moist air are directed to the polar regions of America and Eurasia, and snow falls over the cold surface of the Earth, which does not have time to melt during the short and cold summer. This is how ice sheets appear on continents.

But when, as a result of the transformation of part of the water into ice, the level of the World Ocean drops by tens of meters, the warm Atlantic Ocean ceases to communicate with the Arctic Ocean, and it gradually becomes covered with ice again, evaporation from its surface abruptly stops, less and less snow falls on the continents and less, the “feeding” of the glaciers deteriorates, and the ice sheets begin to melt, and the level of the World Ocean rises again. And again the Arctic Ocean connects with the Atlantic, and again the ice cover began to gradually disappear, i.e. the development cycle of the next glaciation begins anew.

Yes, all these hypotheses quite possible, but so far none of them can be confirmed by serious scientific facts.

Therefore, one of the main, fundamental hypotheses is climate change on the Earth itself, which is associated with the above-mentioned hypotheses.

But it is quite possible that glaciation processes are associated with combined influence of various natural factors, which could act together and replace each other, and the important thing is that, having begun, glaciations, like a “wound clock,” already develop independently, according to their own laws, sometimes even “ignoring” some climatic conditions and patterns.

And the ice age that began in the Northern Hemisphere about 1 million years back, not finished yet, and we, as already mentioned, live in a warmer period of time, in interglacial.

Throughout the era of the Great Glaciations of the Earth, the ice either retreated or advanced again. On the territory of both America and Europe there were, apparently, four global ice ages, between which there were relatively warm periods.

But the complete retreat of the ice occurred only about 20 - 25 thousand years ago, but in some areas the ice lingered even longer. The glacier retreated from the area of ​​modern St. Petersburg only 16 thousand years ago, and in some places in the North small remnants of ancient glaciation have survived to this day.

Let us note that modern glaciers cannot be compared with the ancient glaciation of our planet - they occupy only about 15 million square meters. km, i.e. less than one-thirtieth of the earth's surface.

How can one determine whether there was glaciation in a given place on Earth or not? This is usually quite easy to determine by the peculiar forms of geographical relief and rocks.

In the fields and forests of Russia there are often large accumulations of huge boulders, pebbles, blocks, sands and clays. They usually lie directly on the surface, but they can also be seen in the cliffs of ravines and on the slopes of river valleys.

By the way, one of the first who tried to explain how these deposits were formed was the outstanding geographer and anarchist theorist, Prince Peter Alekseevich Kropotkin. In his work “Research on the Ice Age” (1876), he argued that the territory of Russia was once covered by huge ice fields.

If we look at the physical-geographical map of European Russia, then we can notice some patterns in the location of hills, hills, basins and valleys of large rivers. So, for example, the Leningrad and Novgorod regions from the south and east are, as it were, limited Valdai Upland shaped like an arc. This is exactly the line where in the distant past a huge glacier, advancing from the north, stopped.

To the southeast of the Valdai Upland is the slightly winding Smolensk-Moscow Upland, stretching from Smolensk to Pereslavl-Zalessky. This is another of the boundaries of the distribution of cover glaciers.

Numerous hilly, winding hills are also visible on the West Siberian Plain - "manes" also evidence of the activity of ancient glaciers, or rather glacial waters. Many traces of stopping moving glaciers flowing down the mountain slopes into large basins were discovered in Central and Eastern Siberia.

It is difficult to imagine ice several kilometers thick on the site of current cities, rivers and lakes, but, nevertheless, the glacial plateaus were not inferior in height to the Urals, the Carpathians or the Scandinavian mountains. These gigantic and, moreover, moving masses of ice influenced the entire natural environment - topography, landscapes, river flow, soils, vegetation and wildlife.

It should be noted that on the territory of Europe and the European part of Russia, practically no rocks have been preserved from the geological eras preceding the Quaternary period - Paleogene (66-25 million years) and Neogene (25-1.8 million years), they were completely eroded and redeposited during the Quaternary period, or as it is often called, Pleistocene.

Glaciers originated and moved from Scandinavia, the Kola Peninsula, the Polar Urals (Pai-Khoi) and the islands of the Arctic Ocean. And almost all the geological deposits that we see on the territory of Moscow - moraine, more precisely moraine loams, sands of various origins (aquaglacial, lake, river), huge boulders, as well as cover loams - all this is evidence of the powerful influence of the glacier.

On the territory of Moscow, traces of three glaciations can be identified (although there are many more of them - different researchers identify from 5 to several dozen periods of ice advances and retreats):

• Oka (about 1 million years ago),
• Dnieper (about 300 thousand years ago),
• Moscow (about 150 thousand years ago).

Valdai the glacier (disappeared only 10 - 12 thousand years ago) “did not reach Moscow”, and the deposits of this period are characterized by hydroglacial (fluvio-glacial) deposits - mainly the sands of the Meshchera Lowland.

And the names of the glaciers themselves correspond to the names of those places to which the glaciers reached - the Oka, Dnieper and Don, the Moscow River, Valdai, etc.

Since the thickness of the glaciers reached almost 3 km, one can imagine what colossal work he performed! Some hills and hills on the territory of Moscow and the Moscow region are thick (up to 100 meters!) deposits that were “brought” by the glacier.

The best known are, for example Klinsko-Dmitrovskaya moraine ridge, individual hills on the territory of Moscow ( Sparrow Hills and Teplostanskaya Upland). Huge boulders weighing up to several tons (for example, the Maiden Stone in Kolomenskoye) are also the result of the glacier.

Glaciers smoothed out the unevenness of the relief: they destroyed hills and ridges, and with the resulting rock fragments they filled depressions - river valleys and lake basins, transporting huge masses of stone fragments over a distance of more than 2 thousand km.

However, huge masses of ice (given its colossal thickness) put so much pressure on the underlying rocks that even the strongest of them could not stand it and collapsed.

Their fragments were frozen into the body of the moving glacier and, like sandpaper, for tens of thousands of years they scratched rocks composed of granites, gneisses, sandstones and other rocks, creating depressions in them. Numerous glacial grooves, “scars” and glacial polishing on granite rocks, as well as long hollows in the earth’s crust, subsequently occupied by lakes and swamps, are still preserved. An example is the countless depressions of the lakes of Karelia and the Kola Peninsula.

But the glaciers did not plow up all the rocks on their way. The destruction was mainly carried out in those areas where the ice sheets originated, grew, reached a thickness of more than 3 km and from where they began their movement. The main center of glaciation in Europe was Fennoscandia, which included the Scandinavian mountains, the plateaus of the Kola Peninsula, as well as the plateaus and plains of Finland and Karelia.

Along the way, the ice became saturated with fragments of destroyed rocks, and they gradually accumulated both inside the glacier and under it. When the ice melted, masses of debris, sand and clay remained on the surface. This process was especially active when the movement of the glacier stopped and the melting of its fragments began.

At the edge of glaciers, as a rule, water flows arose, moving along the surface of the ice, in the body of the glacier and under the ice thickness. Gradually they merged, forming entire rivers, which over thousands of years formed narrow valleys and washed away a lot of debris.

As already mentioned, the forms of glacial relief are very diverse. For moraine plains characterized by many ridges and shafts, marking places where moving ice stops, and the main form of relief among them is shafts of terminal moraines, usually these are low arched ridges composed of sand and clay mixed with boulders and pebbles. The depressions between the ridges are often occupied by lakes. Sometimes among the moraine plains you can see outcasts- blocks hundreds of meters in size and weighing tens of tons, giant pieces of the glacier bed, transported by it over enormous distances.

Glaciers often blocked river flows and near such “dams” huge lakes arose, filling depressions in river valleys and depressions, which often changed the direction of river flow. And although such lakes existed for a relatively short time (from a thousand to three thousand years), at their bottom they managed to accumulate lacustrine clays, layered sediments, by counting the layers of which, one can clearly distinguish the periods of winter and summer, as well as how many years these sediments have accumulated.

In the era of the last Valdai glaciation arose Upper Volga periglacial lakes(Mologo-Sheksninskoye, Tverskoye, Verkhne-Molozhskoye, etc.). At first their waters flowed to the southwest, but with the retreat of the glacier they were able to flow to the north. Traces of Mologo-Sheksninsky Lake remain in the form of terraces and shorelines at an altitude of about 100 m.

There are very numerous traces of ancient glaciers in the mountains of Siberia, the Urals, and the Far East. As a result of ancient glaciation, 135-280 thousand years ago, sharp mountain peaks - “gendarmes” - appeared in Altai, the Sayans, the Baikal region and Transbaikalia, on the Stanovoi Highlands. The so-called “net type of glaciation” prevailed here, i.e. If you could look from a bird's eye view, you would be able to see how ice-free plateaus and mountain peaks rise against the backdrop of glaciers.

It should be noted that during the ice ages, quite large ice massifs were located on part of the territory of Siberia, for example on archipelago Severnaya Zemlya, in the Byrranga mountains (Taimyr Peninsula), as well as on the Putorana plateau in northern Siberia.

Extensive mountain-valley glaciation was 270-310 thousand years ago Verkhoyansk Range, Okhotsk-Kolyma Plateau and Chukotka Mountains. These areas are considered centers of glaciations in Siberia.

Traces of these glaciations are numerous bowl-shaped depressions of mountain peaks - circuses or punishments, huge moraine ridges and lake plains in place of melted ice.

In the mountains, as well as on the plains, lakes arose near ice dams, periodically the lakes overflowed, and gigantic masses of water through low watersheds rushed with incredible speed into neighboring valleys, crashing into them and forming huge canyons and gorges. For example, in Altai, in the Chuya-Kurai depression, “giant ripples”, “drilling boilers”, gorges and canyons, huge outlier boulders, “dry waterfalls” and other traces of water flows escaping from ancient lakes “only” are still preserved. just” 12-14 thousand years ago.

“Invading” the plains of Northern Eurasia from the north, the ice sheets either penetrated far to the south along relief depressions, or stopped at some obstacles, for example, hills.

It is probably not yet possible to accurately determine which of the glaciations was the “greatest,” however, it is known, for example, that the Valdai glacier was sharply smaller in area than the Dnieper glacier.

The landscapes at the boundaries of the cover glaciers also differed. Thus, during the Oka glaciation era (500-400 thousand years ago), to the south of them there was a strip of Arctic deserts about 700 km wide - from the Carpathians in the west to the Verkhoyansk Range in the east. Even further, 400-450 km to the south, stretched cold forest-steppe, where only such unpretentious trees as larches, birches and pines could grow. And only at the latitude of the Northern Black Sea region and Eastern Kazakhstan did comparatively warm steppes and semi-deserts begin.

During the era of the Dnieper glaciation, glaciers were significantly larger. Along the edge of the ice sheet stretched the tundra-steppe (dry tundra) with a very harsh climate. The average annual temperature was approaching minus 6°C (for comparison: in the Moscow region the average annual temperature is currently about +2.5°C).

The open space of the tundra, where there was little snow in winter and there were severe frosts, cracked, forming the so-called “permafrost polygons,” which in plan resemble a wedge in shape. They are called “ice wedges,” and in Siberia they often reach a height of ten meters! Traces of these “ice wedges” in ancient glacial deposits “speak” of a harsh climate. Traces of permafrost, or cryogenic effects, are also noticeable in sands; these are often disturbed, as if “torn” layers, often with a high content of iron minerals.

Fluvio-glacial deposits with traces of cryogenic impact

The last “Great Glaciation” has been studied for more than 100 years. Many decades of hard work by outstanding researchers went into collecting data on its distribution on the plains and in the mountains, mapping end-moraine complexes and traces of glacial-dammed lakes, glacial scars, drumlins, and areas of “hilly moraine.”

True, there are also researchers who generally deny ancient glaciations and consider the glacial theory to be erroneous. In their opinion, there was no glaciation at all, but there was a “cold sea on which icebergs floated,” and all glacial deposits are just bottom sediments of this shallow sea!

Other researchers, “recognizing the general validity of the theory of glaciations,” nevertheless doubt the correctness of the conclusion about the grandiose scale of glaciations of the past, and they are especially distrustful of the conclusion about ice sheets that overlapped the polar continental shelves; they believe that there were “small ice caps of the Arctic archipelagos”, “bare tundra” or “cold seas”, and in North America, where the largest “Laurentian ice sheet” in the Northern Hemisphere has long been restored, there were only “groups of glaciers merged at the bases of the domes”.

For Northern Eurasia, these researchers recognize only the Scandinavian ice sheet and isolated “ice caps” of the Polar Urals, Taimyr and the Putorana Plateau, and in the mountains of temperate latitudes and Siberia - only valley glaciers.

And some scientists, on the contrary, are “reconstructing” “giant ice sheets” in Siberia, which are not inferior in size and structure to the Antarctic.

As we have already noted, in the Southern Hemisphere, the Antarctic ice sheet extended over the entire continent, including its underwater margins, in particular the areas of the Ross and Weddell seas.

The maximum height of the Antarctic ice sheet was 4 km, i.e. was close to modern (now about 3.5 km), the ice area increased to almost 17 million square kilometers, and the total volume of ice reached 35-36 million cubic kilometers.

Two more large ice sheets were in South America and New Zealand.

The Patagonian Ice Sheet was located in the Patagonian Andes, their foothills and on the adjacent continental shelf. Today it is reminded of by the picturesque fjord topography of the Chilean coast and the residual ice sheets of the Andes.

"South Alpine complex" of New Zealand– was a smaller copy of Patagonian. It had the same shape and extended onto the shelf in the same way; on the coast it developed a system of similar fjords.

In the Northern Hemisphere, during periods of maximum glaciation, we would see huge Arctic ice sheet resulting from the merger North American and Eurasian covers into a single glacial system, Moreover, an important role was played by floating ice shelves, especially the Central Arctic, which covered the entire deep-water part of the Arctic Ocean.

The largest elements of the Arctic ice sheet were the Laurentian Shield of North America and the Kara Shield of Arctic Eurasia, they were shaped like giant flat-convex domes. The center of the first of them was located over the southwestern part of Hudson Bay, the peak rose to a height of more than 3 km, and its eastern edge extended to the outer edge of the continental shelf.

The Kara ice sheet occupied the entire area of ​​the modern Barents and Kara seas, its center lay over the Kara Sea, and the southern marginal zone covered the entire north of the Russian Plain, Western and Central Siberia.

Of the other elements of the Arctic cover, it deserves special attention East Siberian Ice Sheet, which spread on the shelves of the Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi seas and was larger than the Greenland ice sheet. He left traces in the form of large glaciodislocations New Siberian Islands and Tiksi region, are also associated with it grandiose glacial-erosive forms of Wrangel Island and the Chukotka Peninsula.

So, the last ice sheet of the Northern Hemisphere consisted of more than a dozen large ice sheets and many smaller ones, as well as the ice shelves that united them, floating in the deep ocean.

The periods of time during which glaciers disappeared, or were reduced by 80-90%, are called interglacials. Landscapes freed from ice in a relatively warm climate were transformed: the tundra retreated to the northern coast of Eurasia, and the taiga and deciduous forests, forest-steppes and steppes occupied a position close to the modern one.

Thus, over the past million years, the nature of Northern Eurasia and North America has repeatedly changed its appearance.

Boulders, crushed stone and sand, frozen into the bottom layers of a moving glacier, acting as a giant “file”, smoothed, polished, scratched granites and gneisses, and under the ice, peculiar layers of boulder loams and sands were formed, characterized by high density associated with the influence of glacial load - main, or bottom moraine.

Since the size of the glacier is determined balance Between the amount of snow that falls on it annually, which turns into firn, and then into ice, and what does not have time to melt and evaporate during the warm seasons, then with climate warming, the edges of the glaciers retreat to new, “equilibrium boundaries.” The end parts of the glacial tongues stop moving and gradually melt, and boulders, sand and loam included in the ice are released, forming a shaft that follows the contours of the glacier - terminal moraine; the other part of the clastic material (mainly sand and clay particles) is carried away by meltwater flows and deposited around in the form fluvioglacial sandy plains (Zandrov).

Similar flows also operate deep in glaciers, filling cracks and intraglacial caverns with fluvioglacial material. After the melting of glacial tongues with such filled voids on the earth's surface, chaotic piles of hills of various shapes and composition remain on top of the melted bottom moraine: ovoid (when viewed from above) drumlins, elongated, like railway embankments (along the axis of the glacier and perpendicular to the terminal moraines) oz and irregular shape kama.

All these forms of glacial landscape are very clearly represented in North America: the boundary of ancient glaciation here is marked by a terminal moraine ridge with heights of up to fifty meters, stretching across the entire continent from its eastern coast to the western. To the north of this “Great Glacial Wall” the glacial deposits are represented mainly by moraine, and to the south of it they are represented by a “cloak” of fluvioglacial sands and pebbles.

Just as four glacial epochs have been identified for the territory of the European part of Russia, four glacial epochs have also been identified for Central Europe, named after the corresponding Alpine rivers - Günz, Mindel, Riess and Würm, and in North America - Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois and Wisconsin glaciations.

Climate periglacial The areas (surrounding the glacier) were cold and dry, which is fully confirmed by paleontological data. In these landscapes a very specific fauna appears with a combination cryophilic (cold-loving) and xerophilic (dry-loving) plants – tundra-steppe.

Now similar natural zones, similar to periglacial ones, have been preserved in the form of so-called relict steppes– islands among the taiga and forest-tundra landscapes, for example, the so-called alasy Yakutia, the southern slopes of the mountains of northeastern Siberia and Alaska, as well as the cold, dry highlands of Central Asia.

Tundra-steppe was different in that her the herbaceous layer was formed mainly not by mosses (as in the tundra), but by grasses, and it was here that it took shape cryophilic option herbaceous vegetation with a very high biomass of grazing ungulates and predators – the so-called “mammoth fauna”.

In its composition, various types of animals were intricately mixed, both characteristic of tundra – reindeer, caribou, muskox, lemmings, For steppes - saiga, horse, camel, bison, gophers, and mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses, saber-toothed tiger - Smilodon, and giant hyena.

It should be noted that many climate changes have been repeated, as it were, “in miniature” within the memory of mankind. These are the so-called “Little Ice Ages” and “Interglacials”.

For example, during the so-called “Little Ice Age” from 1450 to 1850, glaciers advanced everywhere, and their sizes exceeded modern ones (snow cover appeared, for example, in the mountains of Ethiopia, where there is none now).

And in the period preceding the Little Ice Age Atlantic optimum(900-1300) glaciers, on the contrary, shrank, and the climate was noticeably milder than the present one. Let us remember that it was during these times that the Vikings called Greenland the “Green Land”, and even settled it, and also reached the coast of North America and the island of Newfoundland in their boats. And the Novgorod Ushkuin merchants traveled along the “Northern Sea Route” to the Gulf of Ob, founding the city of Mangazeya there.

And the last retreat of glaciers, which began over 10 thousand years ago, is well remembered by people, hence the legends about the Great Flood, as a huge amount of meltwater rushed down to the south, rains and floods became frequent.

In the distant past, the growth of glaciers occurred in eras with lower air temperatures and increased humidity; the same conditions developed in the last centuries of the last era, and in the middle of the last millennium.

And about 2.5 thousand years ago, a significant cooling of the climate began, the Arctic islands were covered with glaciers, in the Mediterranean and Black Sea countries at the turn of the era the climate was colder and wetter than now.

In the Alps in the 1st millennium BC. e. glaciers moved to lower levels, blocked mountain passes with ice and destroyed some high-lying villages. It was during this era that glaciers in the Caucasus sharply intensified and grew.

But by the end of the 1st millennium, climate warming began again, and mountain glaciers in the Alps, Caucasus, Scandinavia and Iceland retreated.

The climate began to change seriously again only in the 14th century; glaciers began to grow rapidly in Greenland, summer thawing of the soil became increasingly short-lived, and by the end of the century permafrost was firmly established here.

From the end of the 15th century, glaciers began to grow in many mountainous countries and polar regions, and after the relatively warm 16th century, harsh centuries began, which were called the “Little Ice Age”. In the south of Europe, severe and long winters often recurred; in 1621 and 1669, the Bosporus Strait froze, and in 1709, the Adriatic Sea froze off the coast. But the “Little Ice Age” ended in the second half of the 19th century and a relatively warm era began, which continues to this day.

Note that the warming of the 20th century is especially pronounced in the polar latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, and fluctuations in glacial systems are characterized by the percentage of advancing, stationary and retreating glaciers.

For example, for the Alps there is data covering the entire past century. If the share of advancing alpine glaciers in the 40-50s of the 20th century was close to zero, then in the mid-60s of the 20th century about 30%, and at the end of the 70s of the 20th century, 65-70% of the surveyed glaciers were advancing here.

Their similar state indicates that the anthropogenic (technogenic) increase in the content of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases and aerosols in the atmosphere in the 20th century did not in any way affect the normal course of global atmospheric and glacial processes. However, at the end of the last, twentieth century, glaciers began to retreat everywhere in the mountains, and the ice of Greenland began to melt, which is associated with climate warming, and which especially intensified in the 1990s.

It is known that the currently increased man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, freon and various aerosols into the atmosphere seem to help reduce solar radiation. In this regard, “voices” appeared, first from journalists, then from politicians, and then from scientists about the beginning of a “new ice age.” Environmentalists have “sounded the alarm”, fearing “the coming anthropogenic warming” due to the constant increase in carbon dioxide and other impurities in the atmosphere.

Yes, it is well known that an increase in CO 2 leads to an increase in the amount of retained heat and thereby increases the air temperature at the Earth’s surface, forming the notorious “greenhouse effect”.

Some other gases of technogenic origin have the same effect: freons, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides, methane, ammonia. But, nevertheless, not all carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere: 50-60% of industrial CO 2 emissions end up in the ocean, where they are quickly absorbed by animals (corals in the first place), and of course they are also absorbed by plants–Let's remember the process of photosynthesis: plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen! Those. the more carbon dioxide, the better, the higher the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere! By the way, this already happened in the history of the Earth, in the Carboniferous period... Therefore, even a multiple increase in the concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere cannot lead to the same multiple increase in temperature, since there is a certain natural regulation mechanism that sharply slows down the greenhouse effect at high concentrations of CO 2.

So all the numerous “scientific hypotheses” about the “greenhouse effect”, “rising sea levels”, “changes in the Gulf Stream”, and naturally the “coming Apocalypse” are mostly imposed on us “from above”, by politicians, incompetent scientists, illiterate journalists or simply science scammers. The more you intimidate the population, the easier it is to sell goods and manage...

But in fact, an ordinary natural process is taking place - one stage, one climatic epoch gives way to another, and there is nothing strange about it... But the fact that natural disasters occur, and that there are supposedly more of them - tornadoes, floods, etc. - is another 100-200 years ago, vast areas of the Earth were simply uninhabited! And now there are more than 7 billion people, and they often live where floods and tornadoes are possible - along the banks of rivers and oceans, in the deserts of America! Moreover, let us remember that natural disasters have always existed, and even destroyed entire civilizations!

As for the opinions of scientists, which both politicians and journalists love to refer to... Back in 1983, American sociologists Randall Collins and Sal Restivo, in their famous article “Pirates and Politicians in Mathematics,” wrote openly: “...There is no immutable set of norms that guide the behavior of scientists. What remains constant is the activity of scientists (and related other types of intellectuals), aimed at acquiring wealth and fame, as well as gaining the ability to control the flow of ideas and impose their own ideas on others... The ideals of science do not predetermine scientific behavior, but arise from the struggle for individual success under various competition conditions...”

And a little more about science... Various large companies often provide grants for so-called “scientific research” in certain areas, but the question arises - how competent is the person conducting the research in this area? Why was he chosen out of hundreds of scientists?

And if a certain scientist, “a certain organization” orders, for example, “a certain research on the safety of nuclear energy,” then, it goes without saying that this scientist will be forced to “listen” to the customer, since he has “well-defined interests,” and it is understandable , that he will most likely “adjust” “his conclusions” to the customer, since the main question is already not a question of scientific research–and what does the customer want to receive, what is the result?. And if the customer's result won't suit, then this scientist won't invite you anymore, and not in any “serious project”, i.e. “monetary”, he will no longer participate, since they will invite another scientist, more “amenable”... Much, of course, depends on his civic position, professionalism, and reputation as a scientist... But let’s not forget how much they “get” in Russia scientists... Yes, in the world, in Europe and the USA, a scientist lives mainly on grants... And any scientist also “wants to eat.”

In addition, the data and opinions of one scientist, albeit a major specialist in his field, are not a fact! But if the research is confirmed by some scientific groups, institutes, laboratories, etc. o only then can research be worthy of serious attention.

Unless, of course, these “groups”, “institutes” or “laboratories” were funded by the customer of this research or project...

A.A. Kazdym,
Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, member of MOIP

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