The ancient Snowmass clock was measured in the untold lives of the creatures that roamed and roared in a place and period poorly recorded in the scientific record: The high reaches of Rocky Mountains during the Sangamonian interglacial, a time of very warm weather around the globe, 75,000 to 125,000 years ago.
Other well-known ice age fossil sites, by contrast, like the La Brea Tar Pits in California and Hot Springs, S.D., have been dated to between 10,000 and 40,000 before present, and no well-preserved site has ever been found, scientists said, at this altitude in North America.
Category Archives: Climatology
Ancient Hawaiian Glaciers
“Mauna Kea had a large glacial ice cap of about 70 square kilometers until 14,500 years ago, which has now all disappeared,” said Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at OSU. “We’ve been able to use new data to determine specifically when, where and most likely why the glacier existed and then disappeared.”
Eemian Ice
Accurate climate models based in part on the data collected at NEEM could play an important role in helping human civilization adapt to a changing climate. During the Eemian period, for example, the Greenland ice sheet was much smaller, and global sea levels were about 15 feet higher than they are today, a height that would swamp many major cities around the world.
Papua New Guinea Glaciers
For 5,000 years, great tongues of ice have spread over the 3-mile-high slopes of Puncak Jaya, in the remotest reaches of this remote tropical island. Now those glaciers are melting, and Lonnie Thompson must get there before they’re gone.