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ice ages
46 paragraphs · about 13 minutes · 10 chapters
The paragraphs in the index’s own groups, a chapter to each, in the order the index prints them, and in the order of the book within each. A paragraph read in an earlier chapter is named in one line.
ice ages its own citations 33 paragraphs
59:1.17360,000,000 years ago the land was still rising. North and South America were well up. Western Europe and the British Isles were emerging, except parts of Wales, which were deeply submerged. There were no great ice sheets during these ages. The supposed glacial deposits appearing in connection with these strata in Europe, Africa, China, and Australia are due to isolated mountain glaciers or to the displacement of glacial debris of later origin. The world climate was oceanic, not continental. The southern seas were warmer then than now, and they extended northward over North America up to the polar regions. The Gulf Stream coursed over the central portion of North America, being deflected eastward to bathe and warm the shores of Greenland, making that now ice-mantled continent a veritable tropic paradise.
61:5.1By the close of the preceding period the lands of the northeastern part of North America and of northern Europe were highly elevated on an extensive scale, in North America vast areas rising up to 30,000 feet and more. Mild climates had formerly prevailed over these northern regions, and the arctic waters were all open to evaporation, and they continued to be ice-free until almost the close of the glacial period.
61:5.2Simultaneously with these land elevations the ocean currents shifted, and the seasonal winds changed their direction. These conditions eventually produced an almost constant precipitation of moisture from the movement of the heavily saturated atmosphere over the northern highlands. Snow began to fall on these elevated and therefore cool regions, and it continued to fall until it had attained a depth of 20,000 feet. The areas of the greatest depth of snow, together with altitude, determined the central points of subsequent glacial pressure flows. And the ice age persisted just as long as this excessive precipitation continued to cover these northern highlands with this enormous mantle of snow, which soon metamorphosed into solid but creeping ice.
61:5.3The great ice sheets of this period were all located on elevated highlands, not in mountainous regions where they are found today. One half of the glacial ice was in North America, one fourth in Eurasia, and one fourth elsewhere, chiefly in Antarctica. Africa was little affected by the ice, but Australia was almost covered with the antarctic ice blanket.
61:5.4The northern regions of this world have experienced six separate and distinct ice invasions, although there were scores of advances and recessions associated with the activity of each individual ice sheet. The ice in North America collected in two and, later, three centers. Greenland was covered, and Iceland was completely buried beneath the ice flow. In Europe the ice at various times covered the British Isles excepting the coast of southern England, and it overspread western Europe down to France.
61:5.52,000,000 years ago the first North American glacier started its southern advance. The ice age was now in the making, and this glacier consumed nearly one million years in its advance from, and retreat back toward, the northern pressure centers. The central ice sheet extended south as far as Kansas; the eastern and western ice centers were not then so extensive.
61:5.61,500,000 years ago the first great glacier was retreating northward. In the meantime, enormous quantities of snow had been falling on Greenland and on the northeastern part of North America, and erelong this eastern ice mass began to flow southward. This was the second invasion of the ice.
61:5.7These first two ice invasions were not extensive in Eurasia. During these early epochs of the ice age North America was overrun with mastodons, woolly mammoths, horses, camels, deer, musk oxen, bison, ground sloths, giant beavers, saber-toothed tigers, sloths as large as elephants, and many groups of the cat and dog families. But from this time forward they were rapidly reduced in numbers by the increasing cold of the glacial period. Toward the close of the ice age the majority of these animal species were extinct in North America.
61:5.8Away from the ice the land and water life of the world was little changed. Between the ice invasions the climate was about as mild as at present, perhaps a little warmer. The glaciers were, after all, local phenomena, though they spread out to cover enormous areas. The coastwise climate varied greatly between the times of glacial inaction and those times when enormous icebergs were sliding off the coast of Maine into the Atlantic, slipping out through Puget Sound into the Pacific, and thundering down Norwegian fiords into the North Sea.
61:6.1The great event of this glacial period was the evolution of primitive man. Slightly to the west of India, on land now under water and among the offspring of Asiatic migrants of the older North American lemur types, the dawn mammals suddenly appeared. These small animals walked mostly on their hind legs, and they possessed large brains in proportion to their size and in comparison with the brains of other animals. In the seventieth generation of this order of life a new and higher group of animals suddenly differentiated. These new mid-mammals—almost twice the size and height of their ancestors and possessing proportionately increased brain power—had only well established themselves when the Primates, the third vital mutation, suddenly appeared. (At this same time, a retrograde development within the mid-mammal stock gave origin to the simian ancestry; and from that day to this the human branch has gone forward by progressive evolution, while the simian tribes have remained stationary or have actually retrogressed.)
61:6.21,000,000 years ago Urantia was registered as an inhabited world. A mutation within the stock of the progressing Primates suddenly produced two primitive human beings, the actual ancestors of mankind.
61:6.3This event occurred at about the time of the beginning of the third glacial advance; thus it may be seen that your early ancestors were born and bred in a stimulating, invigorating, and difficult environment. And the sole survivors of these Urantia aborigines, the Eskimos, even now prefer to dwell in frigid northern climes.
61:6.4Human beings were not present in the Western Hemisphere until near the close of the ice age. But during the interglacial epochs they passed westward around the Mediterranean and soon overran the continent of Europe. In the caves of western Europe may be found human bones mingled with the remains of both tropic and arctic animals, testifying that man lived in these regions throughout the later epochs of the advancing and retreating glaciers.
61:7.1Throughout the glacial period other activities were in progress, but the action of the ice overshadows all other phenomena in the northern latitudes. No other terrestrial activity leaves such characteristic evidence on the topography. The distinctive boulders and surface cleavages, such as potholes, lakes, displaced stone, and rock flour, are to be found in connection with no other phenomenon in nature. The ice is also responsible for those gentle swells, or surface undulations, known as drumlins. And a glacier, as it advances, displaces rivers and changes the whole face of the earth. Glaciers alone leave behind them those telltale drifts—the ground, lateral, and terminal moraines. These drifts, particularly the ground moraines, extend from the eastern seaboard north and westward in North America and are found in Europe and Siberia.
61:7.2750,000 years ago the fourth ice sheet, a union of the North American central and eastern ice fields, was well on its way south; at its height it reached to southern Illinois, displacing the Mississippi River fifty miles to the west, and in the east it extended as far south as the Ohio River and central Pennsylvania.
61:7.3In Asia the Siberian ice sheet made its southernmost invasion, while in Europe the advancing ice stopped just short of the mountain barrier of the Alps.
61:7.4500,000 years ago, during the fifth advance of the ice, a new development accelerated the course of human evolution. Suddenly and in one generation the six colored races mutated from the aboriginal human stock. This is a doubly important date since it also marks the arrival of the Planetary Prince.
61:7.5In North America the advancing fifth glacier consisted of a combined invasion by all three ice centers. The eastern lobe, however, extended only a short distance below the St. Lawrence valley, and the western ice sheet made little southern advance. But the central lobe reached south to cover most of the state of Iowa. In Europe this invasion of the ice was not so extensive as the preceding one.
61:7.6250,000 years ago the sixth and last glaciation began. And despite the fact that the northern highlands had begun to sink slightly, this was the period of greatest snow deposition on the northern ice fields.
61:7.7In this invasion the three great ice sheets coalesced into one vast ice mass, and all of the western mountains participated in this glacial activity. This was the largest of all ice invasions in North America; the ice moved south over fifteen hundred miles from its pressure centers, and North America experienced its lowest temperatures.
61:7.8200,000 years ago, during the advance of the last glacier, there occurred an episode which had much to do with the march of events on Urantia—the Lucifer rebellion.
61:7.9150,000 years ago the sixth and last glacier reached its farthest points of southern extension, the western ice sheet crossing just over the Canadian border; the central coming down into Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois; the eastern sheet advancing south and covering the greater portion of Pennsylvania and Ohio.
61:7.10This is the glacier that sent forth the many tongues, or ice lobes, which carved out the present-day lakes, great and small. During its retreat the North American system of Great Lakes was produced. And Urantian geologists have very accurately deduced the various stages of this development and have correctly surmised that these bodies of water did, at different times, empty first into the Mississippi valley, then eastward into the Hudson valley, and finally by a northern route into the St. Lawrence. It is thirty-seven thousand years since the connected Great Lakes system began to empty out over the present Niagara route.
61:7.11100,000 years ago, during the retreat of the last glacier, the vast polar ice sheets began to form, and the center of ice accumulation moved considerably northward. And as long as the polar regions continue to be covered with ice, it is hardly possible for another glacial age to occur, regardless of future land elevations or modification of ocean currents.
61:7.12This last glacier was one hundred thousand years advancing, and it required a like span of time to complete its northern retreat. The temperate regions have been free from the ice for a little over fifty thousand years.
61:7.13The rigorous glacial period destroyed many species and radically changed numerous others. Many were sorely sifted by the to-and-fro migration which was made necessary by the advancing and retreating ice. Those animals which followed the glaciers back and forth over the land were the bear, bison, reindeer, musk ox, mammoth, and mastodon.
61:7.14The mammoth sought the open prairies, but the mastodon preferred the sheltered fringes of the forest regions. The mammoth, until a late date, ranged from Mexico to Canada; the Siberian variety became wool covered. The mastodon persisted in North America until exterminated by the red man much as the white man later killed off the bison.
61:7.15In North America, during the last glaciation, the horse, tapir, llama, and saber-toothed tiger became extinct. In their places sloths, armadillos, and water hogs came up from South America.
61:7.16The enforced migration of life before the advancing ice led to an extraordinary commingling of plants and of animals, and with the retreat of the final ice invasion, many arctic species of both plants and animals were left stranded high upon certain mountain peaks, whither they had journeyed to escape destruction by the glacier. And so, today, these dislocated plants and animals may be found high up on the Alps of Europe and even on the Appalachian Mountains of North America.
61:7.17The ice age is the last completed geologic period, the so-called Pleistocene, over two million years in length.
61:7.1835,000 years ago marks the termination of the great ice age excepting in the polar regions of the planet. This date is also significant in that it approximates the arrival of a Material Son and Daughter and the beginning of the Adamic dispensation, roughly corresponding to the beginning of the Holocene or postglacial period.
61:7.19This narrative, extending from the rise of mammalian life to the retreat of the ice and on down to historic times, covers a span of almost fifty million years. This is the last—the current—geologic period and is known to your researchers as the Cenozoic or recent-times era.
61:7.20[Sponsored by a Resident Life Carrier.]
1st ice age: 0 paragraphs, 32 read above
3rd ice age: Andonites appeared in times of; 1,000,000 years ago 1 paragraph, 4 read above
64:1.4These events occurred during the times of the third glacier, the first according to the reckoning of geologists. The first two glaciers were not extensive in northern Europe.
4th ice age: 750,000 to 600,000 years ago 6 paragraphs, 1 read above
64:4.4750,000 years ago the fourth ice sheet was well on its way south. With their improved implements the Neanderthalers made holes in the ice covering the northern rivers and thus were able to spear the fish which came up to these vents. Ever these tribes retreated before the advancing ice, which at this time made its most extensive invasion of Europe.
64:4.5In these times the Siberian glacier was making its southernmost march, compelling early man to move southward, back toward the lands of his origin. But the human species had so differentiated that the danger of further mingling with its nonprogressive simian relatives was greatly lessened.
64:4.6700,000 years ago the fourth glacier, the greatest of all in Europe, was in recession; men and animals were returning north. The climate was cool and moist, and primitive man again thrived in Europe and western Asia. Gradually the forests spread north over land which had been so recently covered by the glacier.
64:4.7Mammalian life had been little changed by the great glacier. These animals persisted in that narrow belt of land lying between the ice and the Alps and, upon the retreat of the glacier, again rapidly spread out over all Europe. There arrived from Africa, over the Sicilian land bridge, straight-tusked elephants, broad-nosed rhinoceroses, hyenas, and African lions, and these new animals virtually exterminated the saber-toothed tigers and the hippopotamuses.
64:4.8650,000 years ago witnessed the continuation of the mild climate. By the middle of the interglacial period it had become so warm that the Alps were almost denuded of ice and snow.
64:4.9600,000 years ago the ice had reached its then northernmost point of retreat and, after a pause of a few thousand years, started south again on its fifth excursion. But there was little modification of climate for fifty thousand years. Man and the animals of Europe were little changed. The slight aridity of the former period lessened, and the alpine glaciers descended far down the river valleys.
5th ice age: 3 paragraphs, 1 read above
64:7.1When the colored descendants of the Sangik family began to multiply, and as they sought opportunity for expansion into adjacent territory, the fifth glacier, the third of geologic count, was well advanced on its southern drift over Europe and Asia. These early colored races were extraordinarily tested by the rigors and hardships of the glacial age of their origin. This glacier was so extensive in Asia that for thousands of years migration to eastern Asia was cut off. And not until the later retreat of the Mediterranean Sea, consequent upon the elevation of Arabia, was it possible for them to reach Africa.
64:7.2–7 · six paragraphs not cited here ·
64:7.2Thus it was that for almost one hundred thousand years these Sangik peoples spread out around the foothills and mingled together more or less, notwithstanding the peculiar but natural antipathy which early manifested itself between the different races.
64:7.3Between the times of the Planetary Prince and Adam, India became the home of the most cosmopolitan population ever to be found on the face of the earth. But it was unfortunate that this mixture came to contain so much of the green, orange, and indigo races. These secondary Sangik peoples found existence more easy and agreeable in the southlands, and many of them subsequently migrated to Africa. The primary Sangik peoples, the superior races, avoided the tropics, the red man going northeast to Asia, closely followed by the yellow man, while the blue race moved northwest into Europe.
64:7.4The red men early began to migrate to the northeast, on the heels of the retreating ice, passing around the highlands of India and occupying all of northeastern Asia. They were closely followed by the yellow tribes, who subsequently drove them out of Asia into North America.
64:7.5When the relatively pure-line remnants of the red race forsook Asia, there were eleven tribes, and they numbered a little over seven thousand men, women, and children. These tribes were accompanied by three small groups of mixed ancestry, the largest of these being a combination of the orange and blue races. These three groups never fully fraternized with the red man and early journeyed southward to Mexico and Central America, where they were later joined by a small group of mixed yellows and reds. These peoples all intermarried and founded a new and amalgamated race, one which was much less warlike than the pure-line red men. Within five thousand years this amalgamated race broke up into three groups, establishing the civilizations respectively of Mexico, Central America, and South America. The South American offshoot did receive a faint touch of the blood of Adam.
64:7.6To a certain extent the early red and yellow men mingled in Asia, and the offspring of this union journeyed on to the east and along the southern seacoast and, eventually, were driven by the rapidly increasing yellow race onto the peninsulas and near-by islands of the sea. They are the present-day brown men.
64:7.7The yellow race has continued to occupy the central regions of eastern Asia. Of all the six colored races they have survived in greatest numbers. While the yellow men now and then engaged in racial war, they did not carry on such incessant and relentless wars of extermination as were waged by the red, green, and orange men. These three races virtually destroyed themselves before they were finally all but annihilated by their enemies of other races.
64:7.8Since the fifth glacier did not extend so far south in Europe, the way was partially open for these Sangik peoples to migrate to the northwest; and upon the retreat of the ice the blue men, together with a few other small racial groups, migrated westward along the old trails of the Andon tribes. They invaded Europe in successive waves, occupying most of the continent.
79:5.2While the early Neanderthalers were spread out over the entire breadth of Eurasia, the eastern wing was the more contaminated with debased animal strains. These subhuman types were pushed south by the fifth glacier, the same ice sheet which so long blocked Sangik migration into eastern Asia. And when the red man moved northeast around the highlands of India, he found northeastern Asia free from these subhuman types. The tribal organization of the red races was formed earlier than that of any other peoples, and they were the first to migrate from the central Asian focus of the Sangiks. The inferior Neanderthal strains were destroyed or driven off the mainland by the later migrating yellow tribes. But the red man had reigned supreme in eastern Asia for almost one hundred thousand years before the yellow tribes arrived.
6th ice age: 2 paragraphs, 7 read above
64:7.17During the periods of farthest glacial advance the westernmost of the Andon tribes came very near being driven into the sea. They lived for years on a narrow southern strip of the present island of England. And it was the tradition of these repeated glacial advances that drove them to take to the sea when the sixth and last glacier finally appeared. They were the first marine adventurers. They built boats and started in search of new lands which they hoped might be free from the terrifying ice invasions. And some of them reached Iceland, others Greenland, but the vast majority perished from hunger and thirst on the open sea.
80:2.1The early expansion of the violet race into Europe was cut short by certain rather sudden climatic and geologic changes. With the retreat of the northern ice fields the water-laden winds from the west shifted to the north, gradually turning the great open pasture regions of Sahara into a barren desert. This drought dispersed the smaller-statured brunets, dark-eyed but long-headed dwellers of the great Sahara plateau.
6 separate invasions 0 paragraphs, 1 read above
200,000 year cycle 0 paragraphs, 1 read above
another ice age cannot occur so long as polar regions covered with ice 0 paragraphs, 1 read above
hardy humans fostered by rigors of 1 paragraph, 1 read above
65:2.16In this way the life that was planted on Urantia evolved until the ice age, when man himself first appeared and began his eventful planetary career. And this appearance of primitive man on earth during the ice age was not just an accident; it was by design. The rigors and climatic severity of the glacial era were in every way adapted to the purpose of fostering the production of a hardy type of human being with tremendous survival endowment.
Onward
See also glaciers
Cited alongside: British Isles, Europe, Greenland, Iceland, Illinois, Mississippi River, Pennsylvania, races