Arctic fossils indicate warm climate, according to a report in Nature, vol 425, p388, 25 Sep 2003. Richard Tedford of the American Museum of Natural History, New York and Richard Harington of the Canadian Museum of Nature have excavated a peat deposit named Beaver Pond on Ellesmere Island in Northern Canada, latitude 78 degrees North, and found numerous types of mammals including extinct wolverine, Asian badger, three toed horse and musk deer. They also found an extinct badger whose remains have only previously been found in temperate and tropical Eurasia. There were also many plants including larch, spruce, pine and birch trees that don’t grow at such northerly latitudes. The present day tree line is 2,000 km to the south. Sixteen species of beetle were found, all still living today. The plant and beetle fossils indicate the climate was approximately 15 degrees C warmer in winter and 10 degrees C warmer in summer than present day Ellesmere Island. The site is dated Early Pliocene, 4-5 million years old. Tedford and Harington comment “The mammal fauna of the Beaver Pond site is more diverse than that of the modern Arctic tree line and is dominated by Eurasiatic taxa.”
Editorial Comment: These fossils are good evidence that present day global warming is just one more phase in a sequence of degenerating climates commencing after Noah’s Flood (see Gen 822). (Ref. Arctic, fossils, Canada)