chappy wrote:
: Allan, how do you think these animals survived during the winter months so close to the arctic circle? I realize that there is a large amount of vegetation alive and well during the arctic summer, but what are the winter conditions like?
I personally can't tell you why arctic conditions have been a good deal milder in some past times than today. All I can tell you is that a good deal of evidence indicates this. I suggest that you try to get hold of some of the references I gave in my essay that go into such things in laymen's terms. Also, funkyderek gave a link ( http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mammoths.html ) to a good writeup on the talkorigins website. The author deals with claims from a Velikovskian that are very similar to those made by Fundies. The writeup gives some references that I have in my own library and found extremely useful in understanding these things:
Sutcliffe, Anthony J., On the Track of the Ice Age Mammals, Harvard University Press, 1985.
Guthrie, R. Dale. Frozen Fauna of the Mammoth Steppe, 1990, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.
: It's easy to see how large mammals like polar bears and walrus had access to a large food supply in the winter, however the mamouth was a plant eater with a huge appetite. Living in large heards also increased the need for a very large food supply. I've done a fair amount of searching but have yet to find anything addressing this.
Try the above mentioned two books. You have to understand that present-day conditions in the far north are fairly different from what they were at various times in the last 100,000 years. Climate was sometimes a good deal wetter, and perhaps a bit milder. However, it was still cold enough that lions could hunt bison, a bison could begin freezing, a lion break off a tooth in the frozen flesh, and the lions abandon the kill when it was too frozen to continue eating. See Guthrie's book for complete details, or see my essay for a few details.
: One thought that I did have was migration but I've found nothing on this either.
The above books cover this.
: An explination that would work is another one of those "crackpot theories" that you love so much - pole shift. A pole shift would mean that the present day arctic areas were in a more temperate zone at one time, providing year-round vegetation. A sudden pole shift would then have caught the animals grazing and hit them with a fast temperature drop as the then warm arctic suddenly shifted into its present location. There are catastrophic natural events that could cause an episode like this... (a large meteor or comet strike or one passing in very close proximity to the planet, massive volcanic/earthquake activity etc).
There is no evidence I'm aware of (or scientists, either) that such a thing has happened in the recent past.
: An event like this is not far fetched. They are known to have happened farther back in the past.
According to who? I'm familiar with several crackpot authors who have claimed this sort of thing. If you read their material, you quickly find why they're viewed as crackpots.
AlanF