Buried Standing Mammoths Reconsidered in Light of Recent Finds

update:
See here:
http://yoelnatanbooks.blogspot.com/2006/10/where-creationisms-peer-review-process_27.html

-----Original Message-----
From: Pierre, AiG
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 6:46 PM
To: Yoel Natan
Subject: RE: perspective - mammoths

Dear Mr Natan,

I have received some comments from the reviewer and based on them your
article has unfortunately been rejected:

Review
There are problems with the authors thesis. Practically all the
mammoths in Siberia are buried in wind-blown silt, not fluvial or
lacustrine sediments
(<www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/mammoth.asp>). Furthermore, it
is difficult for me to believe that a drowned mammoth in a lake or
river would be buried upright. Of course, it would account for
asphyxiation. I would say that the author needs to demonstrated that
a mammoth carcass can float and be buried upright, but it may be
difficult. Are there any analogs for drowned cows, elephants, horses?
I am not sure how the Ice Man relates. He was found in glacier ice,
while no mammoths have been found in ice.
Mammoths are protruding from river banks because that is where
erosion is exposing them. They are found elsewhere. The erosion of
the Arctic coast reveals many of them each year.
His explanation for the food in its mouth does not seem reasonable.

For any further submissions to our journal I please ask that you
follow our Instructions to Authors
(<www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/tjguidelines.asp>)

With kind regards,
Pierre

Pierre Jerlstrom (PhD)
TJ Editor-in-Chief
Answers In Genesis Ltd. Brisbane, Australia
-----------------------------

Buried Standing Mammoths Reconsidered in Light of Recent Finds

Abstract: The preservation of ice mummies and the mechanics of how
trees were buried in sediments in an upright position may yield clues
as to how some mammoths appear to have been standing on all fours when
they were buried and frozen solid.

Full-Text:

Mammoths sometimes are found buried in sediments and in permafrost
standing on all fours. Sometimes just the bones remain, but
occasionally specimens are found nearly intact. It is as though these
mammoths had been quickly frozen as they grazed on flowers and
grass—or so it would seem. Autopsies suggest that more went on than
just a cold snap, since some mammoths died from asphyxiation.
<www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/fit/chapter1.asp, accessed 17 Dec
2005>
Baffled scientists have offered some theories that usually involve
catastrophic weather conditions on a scale not seen since. Now,
however, paleontological finds in the last few decades suggest that no
exceptional circumstances are necessarily to explain the buried
standing mammoths.
Frozen mammoths are not unique in that many ice mummies have been
recovered. The most famous ice mummy, the Ice Man found in an Alpine
glacier, shows that bodies and grass can be well preserved in ice for
thousands of years at a time.
Even more incredible is the fact that blood cells and tissue have
been preserved in dinosaur bones without any freezing at all. In all
these cases, no extra-ordinary climactic conditions are needed to
explain their preservation, so the same probably is the case for
frozen standing mammoths.
Upright tree trunks buried in coal seams and in sediment layers may
provide a tantalizing insight into the mystery of the buried standing
mammoths.
A lake at Mt. St. Helen's was filled with floating trees after the
last major eruption. A creationist researcher and diver observed that
waterlogged trees sank to the bottom of the lake upright because the
upper trunk remained buoyant longer than the base of the trunk and the
roots. <www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v1/i1/noah.asp, accessed 17 Dec
2005>
Judging from how modern elephants float upright in water with their
legs weighing them down, drowned mammoths would land on (or be dragged
along) a river or lake bottom on all fours.
Much as waterlogged trees land on the bottom upright, the heavy,
low-lying mammoth tusks and big-boned legs would sink to the bottom of
a river or lake. The upper mammoth body is not as bony, so it would be
buoyed up, especially when bloated.
Since river sediments fill in around the dead standing mammoth, it
would later appear to have been standing when it was buried. That the
mammoth drowned would explain why some standing mammoths are known to
have died from asphyxiation.
Other animals are not noted for being buried standing up because
most fossils are not as large as mammoths, so their death pose does
not make as much of an impression on paleontologists.
If mammoths were buried standing up more than other animals, it is
because mammoths have wider bodies, more massive leg bones, and tusks
protruding from the sides that prop their heads up when resting on
ground.
Many mammoth remains today are discovered protruding from riverbanks
and cliffs because they were originally buried in rivers. As the
river meanders and digs deeper into the terrain, its old beds are
re-exposed as collapsing riverbanks, and as cliffs in river bluffs.
The grass and flowers found in standing frozen mammoths are
explained by the fact that mammoth teeth are large and very rough, so
the force of rushing river water would not necessarily floss their
teeth. Furthermore, cold river water inhibits the decay of vegetation,
so grass and flowers would not be loosed by decomposition.
That mammoths were well preserved even though it was warm enough for
grass and flowers to grow is less of a wonder when one considers how
the Ice Man was found with grass tucked into his shoes for insulation.
Grass and flowers do grow in cool weather, even in proximity to
melting piles of snow. So a mammoth could have easily been eating
flowers and grass one moment, and drowned in a river full of snow- and
glacier-melt in the next moment.
Mammoth specimens with fur and skin intact are a rare find, but not
as rare as one might expect. The reason may be that such specimens
were accumulating for decades in frigid river and lake sediments.
Then Siberia plunged into the deep freeze that created the permafrost.
In any case, the numbers are not so great that only extra-ordinary
climactic events can explain their existence.

Biographical Sketch: Yoel Natan writes books on theology such as The Jewish Trinity and The Jewish Trinity Sourcebook (www.yoel.info).