The Ellesmere Embarrassments

Posted on May 7, 2014by malagabay

Ellesmere Island is a large island in the Canadian Artic Archipelago that has long been
associated with Artic exploration.

Fort Conger, located at Discovery Harbour in Lady Franklin Bay on northern

Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, played an intrinsic role in several High Arctic expeditions
between 1875 and 1935, particularly around 1900–10 during the height of the Race to
the North Pole.

Here are found the remains of historic voyages of exploration and discovery related to
the 19th century expeditions of G.S. Nares and A.W. Greely, early 20th century
expeditions of R.E. Peary, and forays by explorers, travelers, and government and
military personnel.
In the Peary era, Fort Conger’s connection with indigenous people was amplified, as
most of the expedition personnel who were based there were Inughuit from Greenland,
and the survival strategies of the explorers were largely derived from Inughuit
material cultural and environmental expertise.

The complex of shelters at Fort Conger symbolizes an evolution from the rigid
application of Western knowledge, as represented in the unsuitable prefabricated
Greely expedition house designed in the United States, towards the pragmatic
adaptation of Aboriginal knowledge represented in the Inughuit-influenced shelters
that still stand today.

Fort Conger: A Site of Arctic History in the 21st Century

Margaret M. Bertulli, Lyle Dick, Peter C. Dawson, Panik Lynn Cousins
http://www.academia.edu/5341247/Fort_Conger_A_Site_of_Arctic_History_in_the
_21st_Century
http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/archeo/sites/gallery/nunavut-9e.shtml
However, the rot set-in for the mainstream in 2008 when they discovered the 127 year
old wood used to construct Fort Conger was being attacked by fungi.

As a scientific station, Fort Conger has been the site of many research projects from the
early “Pendulum Observations”, to “Research on themicrobes attacking the
historic woods at Fort Conger and the Peary huts on Ellesmere Island”
conducted by the University of Minnesota.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Conger
Recent comparisons to the extant recording of the Peary huts (Broodhagen et al., 1979),
done in 1979, show incremental degradation.

Further, gradual thinning of the historic woods of the Peary huts has occurred through
wind ablation, salt or chemical damage, defibration, andCadophora fungi, whose
active presence in moist conditions and above-freezing temperatures
produces soft rot (Blanchette et al., 2008).
Fort Conger: A Site of Arctic History in the 21st Century
Margaret M. Bertulli, Lyle Dick, Peter C. Dawson, Panik Lynn Cousins
http://www.academia.edu/5341247/Fort_Conger_A_Site_of_Arctic_History_in_the
_21st_Century
Samples obtained from wood introduced into the Arctic environment at Beechey Island
and at Fort Conger in northern Ellesmere Island were found to be decayed
only by soft rot.
No decay by wood destroying basidiomycetes was found in any wood samples
examined.

Soft rot decay was identified microscopically by identification of cavities within the
secondary wall of wood cells (data not presented).

Isolations made from the wood revealed several species of Cadophora

including C. malorum, C. fastigiata and C. luteo-olivacea (Table 1).
No previous reports of Cadophora have been made from the Canadian High Arctic.

These Cadophora species were found associated with the soft rot attack in historic
woods and are assumed to be a major decay organism at these sites.

These preliminary investigations suggest that Cadophora species may be as prevalent

and important in decomposition processes and nutrient cycling in the Arctic as they
are in Antarctica.

Decay of historic and archaeological wooden structures: degradation processes and

molecular characterization of wood destroying fungi
Robert A. Blanchette, Joel A. Jurgens, Benjamin W. Held, Brett E. Arenz and
Jason A. Smith
http://www.iaws-web.org/files/file/2005-Chile-Fullpaper-Blanchette-Jurgens-Held-
Arenz-Smith.pdf
The discovery of soft rot was a very embarrassing surprise for the mainstream because
Ellesmere Island is a “paleobiological hotspot” for wood.
Dr. Tatsuo Sweda, then of Nagoya University, Japan, poses with a fossilized stump
found near Strathcona Fiord on Nunavut’s Ellesmere Island in 1990.
The region has been hailed as ‘a paleobiological hotspot.’
(Courtesy Jim Basinger) CBC News – 24 Dec 2013
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/where-arctic-camels-once-roamed-coal-
mining-can-wait-1.2468667
Today, all that’s left of Ellesmere Island’s vast swamp forests are fossilized tree stumps
like those pictured here. Scientists are concerned that some of the best areas for
studying fossils on Ellesmere Island face potential destruction by coal mining
companies.
Photo: Jaelyn Eberle
Polar Field Services
http://polarfield.com/blog/tag/eocene/
Surprisingly, some of this Ellesmere Island wood has apparently resisted soft rot for
somewhere between 2 million and 8 million years.
Researchers on a camping vacation in the Canadian Arctic have discovered a whole
mummified forest previously unknown to science.
The ancient stumps were found on frigid Ellesmere Island, a place devoid of living
trees.

Research scientist Joel Barker of Ohio State University was understandably surprised
when he stumbled upon remnants of the forest.

“At one point I crested a small ridge and the cliff face below me was just riddled with
wood,” he recalled.
Barker and fellow researchers hope to study the archaic wood for clues about how
climate change has affected the arctic ecosystem in the past, and to glean knowledge
about how global warming might impact the Arctic today.

They have already discovered that the forest was buried by an avalanche 2
million to 8 million years ago, and that it was made up primarily of birch, larch,
spruce and pine trees.
Although about a dozen other such frozen forests exist in the Canadian Arctic, this new
site is the farthest north.

Mother Nature Network

http://www.mnn.com/home-blog/green-news-roundup/blogs/weekend-briefing-80
Even more surprising is that this “mummified” wood [that we are told is millions of
years old] burns “just like wood you would find anywhere today”
“I was talking to a park ranger and he mentioned that they had found these logs,” said
Barker, who detailed his find today at a geology conference in San Francisco.

After snagging a few samples, Barker tracked down researchers at the University of
Minnesota who also had spotted the wood deposit.

Determined to find the source of the wood, Barker secured a grant from the National
Science Foundation and returned over the summer to explore the area.

And what he found were perfectly preserved wood samples, covered by an

avalanche 2 million to 8 million years ago.
“These aren’t just fossils,” Barker said.
“You can burn this stuff. It’s just like wood you would find anywhere
today.”
OSU researcher finds mummified forest – Wesley Lowery – 16 Dec 2010
The Columbus Dispatch
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2010/12/16/OSU_researcher_discov
ers_mummified_forest.html
And just like trees you would find anywhere today the trees in this “mummified forest”
have leaves which [by association] are millions of years old.
A mummified birch leaf discovered on Ellesmere Island.
Photo by Joel Barker
Ohio State University
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/mumforestpix.htm
Incredibly, wood can also be pulled out of coal layers that are said to be about 54 million
years old.

For more than 55 million years, Ellesmere Island remained in one place while the
world around it changed. Fifty-five million years ago, verdant forests grew at 75º
North latitude.

These wetland forests, [comprised] of species now primarily found in China, grew on
an alluvial plain where channels meandered back and forth and periodic floods buried
stumps, logs, and leaves intact.
Today the forests are preserved as coal seams that outcrop on the edges …[of] modern
Ellesmere Island, [where] there are no forests, and the tallest vegetation grows less
than 15 cm high.

Large parts of the area are polar desert, subject to intensely cold and dark winters and
minimal precipitation.

Coal and the fossil record of climate change in the Canadian High Arctic – 2010
Anne Jefferson
All-Geo.org – News & Commentary from the World of Geology & Earth Science
http://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2010/01/coal-and-the-fossil-record-of-
climate-change-in-the-canadian-high-arctic/
Bill Hagopian holds a 54 million year old tree trunk excavated from Ellesmere Island.
Photo: Brian Schubert
Polar Field Services
http://polarfield.com/blog/arctic-forests-eocene/
Even more remarkable is the ability of this rot resistant wood [found in the frangible
coal beds and debris layers of Ellesmere Island] to resist the numerous glacial advances
[during the last few million years] which “bulldozer” their way across the terrain.

The current ice age, the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation, started about 2.58 million
years ago during the late Pliocene, when the spread of ice sheets in the Northern
Hemisphere began.
Since then, the world has seen cycles of glaciation with ice sheets advancing
and retreating on 40,000- and 100,000-year time scales called glacial
periods, glacials or glacial advances, and interglacial periods, interglacials or glacial
retreats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_ages#Major_ice_ages
To elaborate: Growing ice sheets are like bulldozers, pushing rocks, boulders
and other detritus into heaps of rubble called moraines.
https://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2013/11/033.html
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-greenland-shrunken-ice-sheet-weve.html
In an action similar to a bulldozer, the glacier plowed over the land.
http://geology.teacherfriendlyguide.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=articl
e&id=80&Itemid=100
The advancing ice thrust sheets of drift upward and forward to form a large ridge
beyond the ice front. Thus, the formation of the moraine moreclosely resembles the
work of a bulldozer rather than a conveyor belt
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/capecod/glacial.html
Ice sheets bulldoze material forwards, heaping it up. Rocks, gravels, boulders,
clams, fossils, and anything else in their path builds up into long moraines on the edge
of the ice sheet.
http://www.sis-group.org.uk/news/shorter-history-greenland-ice-sheet.htm
Bulldozing: Unlike water or wind, glacial ice can push very large clasts along.
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/geol100/lectures/35.html
During ice ages, huge masses of slowly moving glacial ice – up to two kilometres (one
mile) thick – scoured the land like cosmic bulldozers.
http://nature.ca/notebooks/english/iceage.htm
Imagine a bulldozer going over mountains, trees, and flowers. The bulldozer would
definitely leave a mark and probably tear out the trees. Think of a glacier
as a natural bulldozer.
https://www.asf.alaska.edu/blog/where-have-glaciers-been/
The bulldozing action of the glaciers also obliterated much of the previous
geography of southern Ontario though some traces do remain.
http://www.ontarioarchaeology.on.ca/summary/post.php
As they creep along, glaciers reshape the land beneath them. Like giant bulldozers,
they flatten hills and fill in valleys. They can also sculpt valleys, changing them
from a “V” shape to a “U” shape
http://education.randmcnally.com/classroom/rmc/getABNArchive.do;jsessionid=1A
D36061FCDEE8554605AEDBD85162C4?showSingleAnswer=true&abnQuestionId=00
50
The trees of Ellesmere Island clearly provide evidence that:

a) Wood is rot resistance for millions of years in the Arctic

or
b) The Settled Science is rotten.
The embarrassing evidence from Fort Conger [where 127 year old wood is rotting]
clearly falsifies the first hypothesis.

Therefore, this leads to the embarrassing conclusion that the Settled Science is rotten.
Quelle surprise!
Firstly, the mainstream mantra regarding ice sheets is more bull than bulldozer.
We may take it, therefore, as clearly proved, that glacier ice is not a rigid body, but a
plastic one; and that its movements may be compared with those of pitch or other
plastic substances, whose several parts can roll over one another.

When ice moves under the influence of gravity, except on very rapid slopes, it acts like
other plastic substances act.

Its lower surface, in contact with the ground, is dragged by friction, and
moves very little, while its upper part flows faster.
If we pour pitch on a table, we find that it spreads out, not by the bottom of
the mass spreading, but by the edges rolling over; the upper stratum
curling round to form the lower one, which is dragged by the surface of
the table.
Just as a drop of water rolls down a plain, leaving in its track the successive bottom
layers of itself.

The Glacial Nightmare and the Flood; A Second Appeal To Common Sense From The
Extravagance Of Some Recent Geology – Volume II – 1893
Sir Henry Hoyle Howorth
https://archive.org/details/glacialnightmare02howorich
Crusoe Glacier, Axel Heiberg Island, N Canada.

Brian John’s blog on matters relating to Stonehenge and the mystery of the bluestones
http://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com.es/2009/12/glaciation-impossible-on-
wiltshire.html
6. Results
a. None of the data has been analysed and indeed some laboratory tests must still be
made. These are but a very few of the interesting facts which became evident in the
field work:

(l) The ice is approximately 190 feet deep within 1/8 mile back from the ice cliff.

(2) The ice at the bottom of a shaft 100 feet back of the cliff face has not
disturbed the rocky ground beneath nor even lichen communities, but
instead it has flowed “plastically” over it.
AFTER OPERATION REPORT – 1st Engineer Arctic Task Force
Research and Development Program
Greenland 1955
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/123338.pdf
CONCLUSIONS
1. The textbook concept of a “bulldozing” edge of an ice sheet does not
correspond to conditions found in TUTO.
Glacial geologists present numerous examples of terminal moraine buried by glacial
till of subsequent glaciations without being destroyed.

With the exception of some cases of outlet glaciers, the propagation of

large ice sheets occurs apparently without any bulldozing.
2. It appears that the main action of an ice sheet on the ground surface is glacial
plucking, abrasion, and incorporation of debris along shear planes.

Terminal moraines appear to form on places where the ice sheet is temporarily at a
standstill, independent of previous advance or retreat.

Ample field evidence indicates that glacial plucking is temporary; an ice sheet flowing
across a positive relief feature will tend to remove it.

Debris removed by the flowing ice in the TU TO area constitutes material formerly
subjected to subaerial erosion.

Debris bands in the lower tunnel contain oxidized material characteristic of the upper
layers of soils, while less oxidized subsoil material appears in the upper tunnel.

The difference in appearance, which is readily perceptible and is also demonstrated by

microscopic investigation, indicates that the material removal occurred over a short
time span.

Investigation of Shear Zones in the Ice Sheet Margin, Thule Area, Greenland – 1961
George K. Swinzow
U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, N.R.
http://www.igsoc.org/journal.old/4/32/igs_journal_vol04_issue032_pg215-229.pdf
Crusoe Glacier, Axel Heiberg Island, N Canada.

Brian John’s blog on matters relating to Stonehenge and the mystery of the bluestones
http://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com.es/2009/12/glaciation-impossible-on-
wiltshire.html
Secondly, evidence from the John Evans Glacier [79°49′ N, 74°30′ W] on Ellesmere
Island suggests Ice Ages are more Saga than Science.
This result is consistent with the John Evans Glacier forming no more than
a few thousand years ago in a high Arctic environment (18), characterized by
low plant diversity and sparse vegetation cover similar to that currently surrounding
the glacier which consists mainly of Arctic willow (family Salicaceae), purple saxifrage
(genus Saxifraga), Dryas (order Rosales), and Arctic poppy (19).
…
18. Blake W., Jr. Radiocarbon. 1989;31:570.
Ancient Biomolecules from Deep Ice Cores Reveal a Forested Southern
Greenland
Eske Willerslev, Enrico Cappellini, Wouter Boomsma, Rasmus Nielsen, Martin B.
Hebsgaard, Tina B. Brand, Michael Hofreiter, Michael Bunce, Hendrik N. Poinar,
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Sigfus Johnsen, Jørgen Peder Steffensen, Ole Bennike, Jean-Luc
Schwenninger, Roger Nathan, Simon Armitage, Cees-Jan de Hoog, Vasily Alfimov,
Marcus Christl, Juerg Beer, Raimund Muscheler, Joel Barker, Martin Sharp, Kirsty
E.H. Penkman, James Haile, Pierre Taberlet, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Antonella Casoli,
Elisa Campani, and Matthew J. Collins
Science 2007
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2694912/

A series of radiocarbon age determinations obtained by Accelerator Mass

Spectrometry (AMS) shows that the front of Leffert Glacier, a major outlet glacier
from the Prince of Wales Icefield, Ellesmere Island, was 18+ km behind (west of) its
present position for a period of at least 1500 radiocarbon years.

A subsequent readvance occurred close to 2000 radiocarbon years ago, as a

consequence of the climatic cooling that followed the warm Hypsithermal Interval.

A number of other glaciers in the region appear to have behaved in similar fashion.

Application of 14C AMS Dating to The Chronology of Holocene Glacier Fluctuations in

the High Arctic with special reference to Leffert Glacier, Ellesmere Island, Canada
Weston Blake, Jr – Geological Survey of Canada
Radiocarbon, Vol 31, No. 3, 1989
https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/download/1183/118
8
Leffert Glacier, Nunavut Map:
This page presents the Google satellite map (zoomable and browsable) of Leffert
Glacier in Nunavut province in Canada.
Geographical coordinates are 78°41’05” North and 75°01’30” West
http://www.geodata.us/canada_names_maps/maps.php?featureid=OAJQS&f=322
Related Posts
Share this:

 Twitter

 Facebook2


Related

Wikipedia – Come Fly Me

In "Earth"
 Greenland - The Cape York Iron Meteorites
In "Books"

Greenland – Raised Beaches - II

In "Catastrophism"

Gallery | This entry was posted in Catastrophism, Earth, Greenland, Radiocarbon Dating. Bookmark the permalink.

← As Above So Below – Georgi Gladyshev

Cliff and the Piedmonts →
10 Responses to The Ellesmere Embarrassments
1. Pingback: The Axel Heiberg Absurdities | MalagaBay

2. Jim Coyle says:

May 15, 2014 at 19:05

Tim; I was wondering if you or anyone on the Malaga Bay site would know of someone
doing ice reasearch on Antarctic ice cores. I’m particularly interested in the 30-35 mya
stratas. I would be looking for impact ejecta, brecias, and or melts from the proposed
Drake Passage are impacts. Thanks, Jim
Reply
o malagabay says:
May 16, 2014 at 19:52

Sorry… I’ve got nothing to offer on that one… Tim

Reply

3. Jim Coyle says:

May 20, 2014 at 02:24

Tim; I’ve done a little digging on ice cores and found that no one appears to be any
where near getting to that age. I also fear that if they do get near there they will be out of
ice. My time line indicates that glaciation started after 34 mya. Had I been thinking I
would have figured that out before asking, Oh well. Does anyone if there are any ice free
areas other than mountain tops on Antarctica where ejecta and tectites have or could be
found? Thanks for the assist Tim
Reply

o malagabay says:
May 20, 2014 at 06:24

Jim: I’ve got nothing more I can bring to the party at this time… the chances are that any
new tektite field will be discovered at the bottom of the ocean… my other guess is that
the “geologic timescale” needs a “calibration curve” so it can be translated into real
time… so best keep a very open mind about “dates”… this is especially true when a
multitude of individually [and incorrectly] “dated” secondary impact structures were
triggered by a single massive primary impact.
Good luck… Tim
Reply

 Jim Coyle says:

May 20, 2014 at 09:27

Tim; I’ve generally figured that any dates thrown out there should have a +- of at least 1-
2 million yrs for cushion. I’m willing to bet you’re right about the tektites being at the
bottom of the sea, but I’m still willing to bet that there are some plus ejecta on nthe
 continent. I doubt that South America will have anything on land but the ocean to the
north and east should be a prime location.

4. Stephen Kovaka says:

July 29, 2014 at 22:55

I’ll see your 54 million year old wood, and raise you the 68 million year old dinosaur
blood cells, soft tissue, protein and even DNA investigated by Mary Schweitzer!

from Wikipedia:
Discoveries
In 2000, Bob Harmon the chief preparator of paleontology at the Museum of the
Rockies discovered a Tyrannosaurus skeleton in Hell Creek, Montana. After a two year
retrieval process, Horner gave the femur leg bone to Schweitzer. After discovering that
the bones came from a pregnant female, Schweitzer was able to retrieve proteins in
2007.[7]

Schweitzer was the first researcher to identify and isolate soft tissues from a 68 million
year old fossil bone. The soft tissues are collagen, a connective protein. Amino acid
sequencing of several samples have shown matches with the known collagens of
chickens, frogs, newts and other animals. Prior to Schweitzer’s discovery, the oldest soft
tissue recovered from a fossil was less than one million years old.[8] Schweitzer has also
isolated organic compounds and antigenic structures in sauropod egg shells.[9] With
respect to the significance of her work, Kevin Padian, Curator of Paleontology,
University of California Museum of Paleontology, has stated “Chemicals that might
degrade in a laboratory over a short period need not do so in a protected natural
chemical environment…it’s time to readjust our thinking.”[8]

Schweitzer first publicly announced her discovery in 1993.[10][11] Since then, the claim
of discovering soft tissues in a 68 million year old fossil has been disputed by some
molecular biologists. Later research by Kaye et al.[12] published in PLoS ONE (30 July
2008) challenged the claims that the material found is the soft tissue of Tyrannosaurus.
The successful extraction of ancient DNA from dinosaur fossils has been reported on
two separate occasions, but, upon further inspection and peer review, neither of these
reports could be confirmed. The extraction of protein from dinosaur fossils has been
confirmed.[13] A more recent study (October 2010) published in PLoS ONE contradicts
 the conclusion of Kaye and supports Schweitzer’s original conclusion.[14]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Higby_Schweitzer
See also: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur-shocker-
115306469/?no-ist
for photos.
Well, well – so organic remains of dinosaurs can survive 68 million years without
disintegrating! Who knew? Ain’t Science wonderful!
Reply

5. Bill says:
December 12, 2014 at 22:51

Hmmm. You scientists begin with the assumption of 54 to 68 million years of age (!) and
then fit all the “amazing” (a.k.a. contrary-to-common-sense) discoveries into your
Procrustean bed. Why not let the organic evidence give you some indication of the actual
age of your specimens?
Reply

6. Mark says:
January 21, 2016 at 08:04

Good luck Bill, if It doesn’t fit with their theories they ignore it or make up another,
supposedly well educated and speculative theory. I don’t see any reply to your
suggestion of over 1 year ago…surprised?
Reply

7. Bill says:
January 21, 2016 at 13:36

Not surprised at all, my friend.

Reply