Scientist Probes Fossil Oddity: Giant Redwoods Near North Pole

[rangerrebew]

Scientist Probes Fossil Oddity: Giant Redwoods Near North Pole

Date:
    March 22, 2002
Source:
    Johns Hopkins University
Summary:
    Once upon a time, Axel Heilberg Island was a very strange place. Located within the Arctic Circle north of mainland Canada, a full 8/9ths of the way from the equator to the North Pole, the uninhabited Canadian island is far enough north to make Iceland look like a great spot for a winter getaway, and today there’s not much to it beyond miles of rocks, ice, a few mosses, and many fossils. The fossils tell of a different era, though, an odd time about 45 million years ago when Axel Heilberg, still as close to the North Pole as it is now, was covered in a forest of redwood-like trees known as metasequoias.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020322074547.htm

[rangerrebew]

Less Ice In Arctic Ocean 6000-7000 Years Ago

Date:
    October 20, 2008
Source:
    Geological Survey of Norway
Summary:
    Recent mapping of a number of raised beach ridges on the north coast of Greenland suggests that the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean was greatly reduced some 6000-7000 years ago. The Arctic Ocean may have been periodically ice free.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081020095850.htm

[Joe Wooten]

Scientist Probes Fossil Oddity: Giant Redwoods Near North Pole

Date:
    March 22, 2002
Source:
    Johns Hopkins University
Summary:
    Once upon a time, Axel Heilberg Island was a very strange place. Located within the Arctic Circle north of mainland Canada, a full 8/9ths of the way from the equator to the North Pole, the uninhabited Canadian island is far enough north to make Iceland look like a great spot for a winter getaway, and today there’s not much to it beyond miles of rocks, ice, a few mosses, and many fossils. The fossils tell of a different era, though, an odd time about 45 million years ago when Axel Heilberg, still as close to the North Pole as it is now, was covered in a forest of redwood-like trees known as metasequoias.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/03/020322074547.htm

Back in the Cretaceous times and afterwards, the planet was MUCH warmer than it is now. Sea levels were much higher as most of the land from Texas to Arctic Ocean was underneath a shallow sea that split North America in two. All the oceans were much better connected than they are now, so tropical warm water circulated much more freely than now to an extent there were no ice caps at the poles. Antarctica was ice free and home to a temperate forest. All that changed when the volcanoes between north and south America formed the Panama isthmus and cut off direct circulation between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. This caused the poles to get colder as the arctic ocean was isolated except for the central ocean and the narrow straights between Siberia/N America, N America/Greenland and greenland/Europe. The big circular current around Antarctica isolated it from the warmth of the tropic currents causing it to cool. As the ice caps started forming, sea levels dropped drying up the shallow ocean up the middle of North America, further isolating the Arctic Ocean causing more cooling. The situation has now stabilized with the planet cycling between extreme cold with low ocean levels and slightly wamrer periods with higher sea levels.

[Free Vulcan]

Did the Earth even rotate on the axis it does now?

[GtHawk]

Did the Earth even rotate on the axis it does now?

Nah, back then the Earth was flat and spun like an old phonograph record whatever that was