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Blavatsky Net - Theosophy

Atlantis - Suddenness

You wrote:
At 07:20 PM 7/19/2004 -0400, you wrote:
Reed,

Just an interesting note. Mammoth remains were recently found in
Maine and are displayed at the State Museum.

Of course the mammoth remains found in Maine are interesting in themselves. They also do make a significant other point: the finding of mammoths is not limited to Siberia. This will end up being a relevant point for this exploration of Atlantis.

Here is a quote that may relate to the animal in Maine.

"While the northern animals were frozen solid in ground almost instantly reduced to permafrost conditions, the mastodons, were entombed in great avalanches of mud and salts that, upon consolidating, often preserved many of their soft parts and sometimes even their stomach contents." [Cataclysm p 122]

Also after you published your letter I have noted some other creatures found within driving distance from where I live. They have been found in Orange County, New York state in 1845, Hackett's Town New Jersey, Jamestown New York in August 1871, Monmouth County, New Jersey in 1823, Long Branch New Jersey found in 1823, and another in Newburgh New York. All sites relatively close to home for me.

But what I am really concerned with is the issue of suddenness of the disaster that the Pleistocene age was created to resolve. How really abrupt was the disaster. To pursue I want to take a factor that is fairly known to the list - the frozen Siberian mammoth - and build upon that to explore the larger issue of suddenness.

For many years I thought there was only one frozen carcass found. Now I have explained that the first one was found in 1772. Even that is disputed. There are some records that suggest earlier. It is said that the Tunguse, living in Siberia, have used unfreezing mammoth carcasses for food for 1600 years.

"Based on the number of bones found and the use of old ivory continuing even today, the original number of the mammoths in
Siberia and Alaska is estimated to be several hundred thousands, maybe even millions, of animals." [From Darwin was Wrong p 81]

Only ivory tusks that are from a recently deceased elephant or from a frozen mammoth are useful for carving. Ivory carving requires relatively fresh material. So there has been a huge market in recently unfrozen mammoth tusks for a long time. I seem to remember 20,000 such tusks in 3 decades but I suspect I somehow have my figures wrong. Here is a quote I just found: "The larger part of the ivory, used for carving in Eastern Asia, even today comes from the large ivory deposits in Siberia. These consist of tusks of long extinct mammoths." [ibid p 79. published in 1998].

I don't seem able to find my Mammoth material at the moment but I have read startling figures claiming something like half the trade in ivory has come from Siberian sources of frozen mammoths in a significant number of decades in recent times past.

These frozen mammoths have been found in a wide area - some 3,000 miles from Siberia to Alaska.

So we have many animals over a wide area.

Now to stomach contents.

Many people on this I guess are aware that undigested buttercups have been found in the stomachs of the mammoths. Lets consider the buttercups first. They grow in a warmer climate than Siberia. We have also found in their stomachs undigested grasses that are known to grow ONLY in more moderate climates.

Of course a problem develops. To freeze a mammoth so fast that it does not rot and instead its stomach contents still remain undigested requires a VERY fast freeze. How could it have happened?

But whatever happened, happened faster than that. In 1900 a frozen mammoth was found in the Berezovka River. The unusual part was that there was half-chewed food in the animal's mouth. The animal did not have time to swallow before being overcome. The animal was found in upright position.

Mammal skin:

Often one sees pictures of the mammoths in todays science textbooks that represent a reconstructed image. What one usually sees is a winter type environment in the picture. But this is not correct. The mammoths did not have fur. They had straggly thin hair. It was not enough to keep them warm. Moreover, their skin did not have the proper oil for a cold climate. So they were not suited to a cold climate and the pictures are in error.

We can note that a mammoth needs to eat a lot of vegetation. A cold climate does not provide enough vegetation to supply the food for the mammoth. So the mammoth had been living in a warm climate not a frigid one.

Some more oddities. It wasn't only mammoths that had frozen.

Rhinoceros' were also found perfectly frozen. They are found today only in warmer climates.

Other animals found frozen include: horses, rabbits, squirrels, woverines, a vole and a lynx along with numerous more species. All the list of animals lived or live today in warmer climates.

Plants were also frozen.

"While surveying the New Siberian Islands, Arctic explorer Baron Eduard von Toll discovered the remains of a sabretooth- tiger and those of a fruit tree with an original height of about 88 feet. The tree had suddenly and completely been preserved by the ice, including its ripe fruits, green leaves, roots and seeds, virtually instantly frozen. Nowadays, the only plants to be found there are creepers." [ibid p 80]

There is one last item called "muck" that also supports the suddenness. I will quote at some length in order to convey the point and then end the letter.

"Coincident with this dreadful slaughter upon the land was the deposition far inland of myriads of contemporary marine shells, and the stranding at great elevations of marine mammals such as whales, porpoises, walruses and seals. Elsewhere, vast forests were flattened and buried under equally vast accumulations of sand or mud or piled up in broken and twisted heaps.. At some localities plant remains were packed so densely and in such abundance as to form lignite (soft brown coal akin to peat) beds of great extent, while at others animal and plant remains were mixed together in inexpressible confusion as heterogeneous masses. In Alaska, for example, thick frozen deposits of volcanic ash, silts, sands boulders, lenticles and ribbons of unmelted ice, and countless relics of late Pleistocene animals and plants lie jumbled together in no discernible order, This amazing deposit, usually referred to as 'muck', has been described by Dr Rainey as containing: 'enormous numbers of frozen bones extinct animals, such as the mammoth, mastodon, super bison and horse, as well as brush, stumps, moss and freshwater molluscs.'

Hibben described these deposits in very similar language:
'In many places, Alaskan muck is packed with animal bones and debris in trainload lots. Bones of mammoths, mastodons, several kinds of bison, horses, w2olves, bears, and lions tell a story of a faunal population ... within this frozen mass lie the twisted parts of animals and trees intermingled with lenses of ice and layers of peat and mosses. It looks as though in the midst of some cataclysmic catastrophe of ten thousand years ago the whole Alaskan world of living animals and plants was suddenly frozen in mid-motion in a grim charade.'

In another publication, the same author commented:
'Although the formation of the deposits of muck is not clear, there is ample evidence that at least portions of this material were deposited under catastrophic conditions.l Mammal remains are for the most part dismembered and disarticulated, even though some fragments yet retain, in their frozen state, portions of ligaments, skin, hair and flesh. Twisted and torn trees are piled in splintered masses ... at least four considerable layers of volcanic ash may be traced in these deposits, although they are extremely warped and distorted.' "
________

All of this evidence suggests a global earth-wide sudden catastrophe that was almost instant. When we solve the larger problem of this enormous disaster, then we can more easily solve the lesser problem of the sinking of the island of Atlantis. Indeed, to make room for Atlantis within the science of geology, we need to loosen the grip of the existing paradigm of geology - as I hope we agree has been done - and then resolve the nature of this disaster. Then there is room for Theosophy's Atlantis within the data of geology.

Reed Carson