Few travelers traverse the northernmost land regions of the Arctic circle. Fewer still pause amidst the bitter cold and howling wind to dig into the ice. However, some scientists have done so and, when they did, some of the finds astounded them. The frozen tundra of the arctic hides some incredible extinct creatures such as woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers. These and others are often found frozen in the standing position, with their mouths or stomachs still containing the contents of their last meal. This article will discuss the significance of such finds and how they impact the origins debate.
The first and most obvious point to recognize is that these animals must have been frozen almost instantaneously. There is no other explanation for the multiple instances of mammoths being found with undigested food still in their stomachs. There is even a documented instance of a frozen mammoth being found with food still in its mouth. Obviously plant material would not have survived in an unfrozen state for any length of time. Therefore, it, and the animal devouring it, must have been frozen rapidly.
Rapid freezing requires very special conditions. High winds, such as those that sweep the arctic tundra are necessary to pile up the snow and ice to bury creatures alive. Extremely high levels of precipitation and humidity are also required in order to generate the ice and snow needed for a quick freeze. However, the most obvious necessary component for a quick frozen mammoth is a very very cold temperature. For ice and snow to form in sufficient quantity fast enough to bury an animal as large as a mammoth, temperatures would have to have been well below freezing, likely well below zero degrees Fahrenheit.
These being the requirements for a quick frozen mammoth, a very obvious question arises. Did mammoths live in the cold normally or did their environment suddenly and rapidly change? Frozen evidence suggests the latter. Food found in both the mammoths stomachs and mouths include plant families native to much warmer areas of earth than the arctic. Further, buried on a Norwegian island in 2015, researchers found a fossilized tropical rain forest. This is just one of several such finds. This would indicate the arctic is much colder now than it used to be, when mammoths lived there. Thus it must have undergone a sudden change that permitted the mammoths to be quick frozen.
If the tropical climate of the mammoth changed, a new question presents itself. Finding a cause for this drastic change requires examining the Scriptures. The Bible tells us that, at the beginning of the flood, the fountains of the deep broke open. “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” Genesis 7:11 says. This explosion of water upwards would provide the necessary humidity and precipitation for quick freezing. However temperatures would still have been too high in a tropical rain forest. Something else had to change.
To find out what else changed, we need to quickly give some background information about the arctic circle. One of the reasons for the arctic being cold all year long is its six month night. Due to the tilt of the earth, for as much as six months of the year, the arctic has little to no sunlight. Essentially, as the earth orbits the sun, its axis of rotation is not perpendicular. Instead it hangs at a slightly greater than twenty-five degree angle. This is what gives us seasons. However, this could not have always been the case. No tropical rain forest would survive six months of complete darkness. The plants rely heavily on the sun for the energy they need to make their food. Yet, as noted above, we find tropical rain forests buried under the arctic ice. Therefore, at one point, the earth must have rotated at a different angle, likely more acute, possibly perpendicular, which would have led to the tropical environment at the poles. The tilt of the earth must have changed suddenly to permit mammoths to be quick frozen as they were.
The conditions of the flood are the most likely answer for the change in the tilt of the earth. Massive volcanic activity and the tremendous explosive force accompanying the release of the fountains of the deep would have generated an immense amount of power which would have rocked the planet to its core. This power would likely have been enough to throw the earth off its axis of rotation and on to its current axis of rotation. This must have occurred early in what would now be the arctic six months of night. This is impossible to empirically prove, since no one witnessed it and the Scripture is silent on the issue, but it seems to make the most sense of the data at hand.
The effect of this change in the earths axis of rotation would have been immediate. The arctic would have been plunged into instant darkness. Animals would have panicked, plunging about wildly in an effort to escape the darkness. Meanwhile, as hot water and air escaped the cavernous fissures of the fountains of the deep, cold air from the upper atmosphere would have been displaced. Since cold air naturally falls anyway, and the rising hot air would have left vacant space in its wake, this would have resulted in immense down drafts of cold air, drastically lowering temperatures and resulting in powerful gusts of wind. In warmer climates, where the sun was still shining, the effects would have been negligible. However, in the newly darkened arctic, temperatures would have plummeted to well below zero. The volcanic ash in the air would have served as a foundation for snow, while water tumbling from the massive uprising fountains of the deep would have provided the moisture for both snow and ice. As the snow fell at a rapid pace, the wind generated by the down drafts would have piled it up the snow around objects, including mammoths. The intense cold and the piled up snow and ice would have quickly frozen the mammoths in place. As the flood progressed, water would have swamped over the piled up snow, freezing it in place. Eventually the water above would have settled in place and frozen as the long arctic winter continued, entombing the frozen mammoth below the surface.
As we have seen above, quick frozen mammoths have a great deal of significance. They help provide evidence for the global flood and act as challenges to the evolutionary theory of multiple ice ages. If the mammoths had been trapped in glaciers and slowly buried, the food in their stomachs would have digested. The frozen mammoths also provide clues that help us build a creation model. By being quick frozen, the mammoths provide evidence that the Bible speaks truth and give us evidence for a young earth.
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